Waterloo Metro Quarter
Waterloo Metro Quarter
A culturally focused Community Building and Public Art Strategy that responds to Waterloo’s rapidly changing community dynamics whilst recognising and celebrating it’s strength and foundations.
Location
Gadi Country Waterloo, NSW
Client
Waterloo Developer (Mirvac & John Holland Group Joint Venture)
Completion
Ongoing
Collaborators
Nadeena Dixon Murawin Tess Allas Sebastian Golsdpink Amanda Jane Reynolds Event Engineering Aspect Studios Hassell Bates Smart Woods Bagot John McAslan + Partners
Artists
Nadeena Dixon Lorna Munro Carmen Glynn-Braun Dennis Golding
The Public Art Strategy and Community Building are part of the broader Waterloo Metro Quarter Development, including residential precincts, commercial and communal facilities above the new Waterloo Metro Station.
Through an extensive process of collaboration, the Public Art Strategy brings together a consortium of multidisciplinary artists, cultural practitioners, thinkers, and writers – each unique story woven into a spatial narrative across the precinct.
The community building, enveloped by a protective layer, frames and filters views and light through breeze blocks screens and mesh inserts with metal scales that sparkle in the sun, reminiscent of the Golden Orb Weaver that orientates its web to catch the morning and afternoon light.
In our conceptualisation of the Community Building, we express the possum skin cloak as a protective layer, translating stories around the ongoing and contemporary practice of cloak-making.
Referencing the idea of a kangaroo or possum skin cloak, traditionally worn for warmth and protection, a patchwork of facade types is conceptually “sewn together” across the podium to respond to the different climatic and functional requirements of the spaces within.
Integrated artworks developed with Nadeena Dixon are highly visible from the public realm and the childcare. The artwork provides a distinctive character to this place, adds interest both up close as well as from a distance, tells stories of this place, and provides an education and storytelling opportunity for the childcare facility and public domain experience.
Team
Credits
Visualisations (Public Art)
Choi Render