Crescent House banner
Project by
Year of completion
2013
Client
Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation

A device to heighten perception, amplifying the experience of light and landscape.

Project team: Andrew Burns, Tom Gray, Alan Powell

Structural Engineer: ARUP

Contractor: Top Knot Carpentry

Photography: Brett Boardman Photography

Location: Sydney, NSW

Year: 2012–2013

Client: Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF)

Land: Gadigal

Supporters: BVN Donovan Hill, Andrew Cameron Family Foundation, Nelson Meers Foundation

Value: $100K

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‘Crescent House’ is the first in an annual series of temporary pavilions to be installed at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation. Two arcs are set within an apparently simple rectilinear form. The arcs bisect, creating a pair of infinitely sharp points and a threshold to the space beyond. This combination of fragility and robustness seeks to charge encounters in the space with a particular quality. The structure has an ambiguous presence; between architecture and art object. Through framing, it transforms an ordinary rose apple hedge into a landscape of beauty. The pavilion has been permanently installed at Heide Museum of Modern Art.

View from approach.
Frontal presentation to courtyard.
Plan, section and nosing details.

Customarily, the act of framing attributes value. By precisely framing the rose apple hedge, it is imbued with a sense of heightened value, creating a feeling of surprising vastness.

The pavilion frames a Rose Apple hedge.
The dark toned cladding absorbs the colour tones of the adjacent spaces; the green of the hedge and the grey/brown of the gravel courtyard.
The perforated screen at the entry to the pavilion overlays a lighting pattern onto the solid materiality.

Professionals used in
Crescent House

About the
Professional

Architecture that's second to nature AND design thinking to make cities work. Working across a breadth of natural and urban settings, our projects are materially rich and geometrically precise, with a deep sense of care underpinning all that we do. 

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