Central Goldfields Art Gallery and Indigenous Interpretive Garden

Our design methodology here is placed based with a strong focus on spatial experience, materiality and cultural experience. The collaborative design process aims at respecting the original heritage building while embedding new thought into art space programs and investigating place through weaving the gallery interior to the Indigenous Garden and communities beyond.

The Wartaka (coming together with purpose) with the Dja Dja Wurrung Elders and Three Acres Landscape explored concepts of country, fire burning and geometries. The process responded by adopted a concept of revealing or pairing back, rather than performing a historic restoration of the building back to its original state (and ideology). The scheme adopted crafting vistas through the interior whereby space could connect cultures, different ideologies, beliefs, histories, and stories. The process implemented a system of design tactics which could open up space allowing for new engagement, multiple truths questioning notions of the dominant colonial ideologies.

The Project’s spatial experiences and resolution for the program and site including the innovative way of connecting to the Indigenous Interpretive Garden was exhibited in the Unsettling Queenstown, Australian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2023 as a exploration in indigenizing the Fire Station. This process of subtraction (erasing and cutting through the colonial fabric); establishing spatial channels (slicing through the colonial space where space was seen a an object. ‘Displaced geometries’ (reconfiguring geometrical systems, using geometry to question our spatial reality). As a result, visitors are placed in new relationships with both the horizontal connection to the Indigenous Interpretive Garden and vertically through sculptural skylights to the Bell Tower, which have not previously been experienced internally before.

This gallery design process establishes a focus on the contemporary appreciation of artwork and integrating the Indigenous Interpretive Garden and landscape for all-inclusive, and culturally rich design response which exceeds the brief through its merited outcomes.

This transformation of the Victorian Fire Station and Bell Tower (1861) in Dja Dja Wurrung, Maryborough by the Central Goldfields Shire Council for the Central Goldfields Art Gallery with Nervegna Reed Architecture, Djandak (Djaara) and Three Acres Landscape Architecture. The project displays the power of collaborative design, interpreting all voices for an outcome which is considered and inspiring at the same time. The project positively optimises gallery spaces, climate-controlled art storage and expanded arts program for greater visitor experience and new tourism. The project reveals the historical aspects of a site while also introducing a voice of the Djaara culture through its new focussed views to the Indigenous Interpretive Garden.

The design crafts and ‘strips back’ the heritage fire station, while weaving significant views of the Indigenous Interpretive Garden back into the building’s fabric. This series of ‘sliced’ vistas connect visitors to both the history of the Fire Station and Bell Tower through sculptural skylights while also introducing notions of Country, fire practice themes and the culture of the Djaara which has been designed by the Dja Dja Wurrung Elders and artists in the Indigenous Interpretive Garden. Here visitors may reflect, and share culture while experiencing the natural elements of Country.

The project offers international art display and archive storage for the 300-artwork collection. In solving accessibility requirements within, the design exceeds the brief, delivering an additional gallery and media projection space, offering public views and connections to the archive storage, the street and the Indigenous Garden.
The project’s process explores how architecture may respond sensitively for greater user experience and contemporary art display with a crafted spatial experience which engages with the program, the history of the building through a delicate response to the engage with the Indigenous Interpretive Garden and the multiple histories of the Goldfields area.

The goals of the project were; to optimize gallery space with new contemporary display standards, greater visitor experience, new connections the street and to the new Indigenous Interpretive Garden. The design merges the historic elements of the 19th century fire station through new art exhibition facilities which required negotiating several floor level changes for greater accessibility and circulation of visitors, staff and large art pieces.

The design establishes a wide central ramp which inventively creates new visual connections for visitors with views that weave the main gallery, collections store, back of house, and Bell Tower through sculptural skylights, with greater connections to the street fabric and to the new Indigenous Interpretive Garden. The central ramp also offers an additional gallery, archive display window, and media gallery window facing Neill Street all beyond the original brief. In solving the accessibility requirements, an outcome adds an additional gallery space and display opportunities, with intuitive circulation where visitors may pause and reflect on the old and new elements of the site and the workings of a gallery. The project establishes design tactics of revealing, and slicing the fabric of the colonial station through a filter of Country through creating new vistas for visitor connection between the interior and the Indigenous Garden reflecting natural elements of the Dja Dja Wurrung.

The ‘stripping back’ of the original station invites visitors to focus on new composed views connecting them with the Indigenous Garden and vegetation in a spirit of reconciliation and sharing of Dja Dja Wurrung culture. The CGAG displays an imaginative response connecting across various scales of the art program, optimizing art display, with greater connections to the site’s history and an opening up to Aboriginal heritage in a deep cultural response for the Goldfields through a filter of Country for Maryborough and Regional Victoria.

The transformation of the Victorian Fire Station and Bell Tower (1861) in Dja Dja Wurrung, Maryborough for the Central Goldfields Art Gallery by the Central Goldfields Shire Council with Nervegna Reed Architecture, Djandak (Djaara) and Three Acres Landscape is a demonstration of a regional project which may sensitively resolve the need for a contemporary arts program within a significant historic building site while introducing a sharing of histories, cultures and Country.

In the Wartaka, a coming together with purpose, the collaborative voices the Dja Dja Wurrung Elders and artists designed a garden where visitors may reflect, learn and share culture weaving their story to the site and reflecting natural elements of Country. The project positively optimizes gallery spaces, art storage for greater visitor experience with new and expanded cultural programs for greater audiences and tourism conducted with a revealing the historical aspects of a site and introducing a voice of the Djaara culture at the same time.
Through minimal additions, the design adopts a reduction material and reuses original bricks for new walls, archways minimizing waste from the outset. Elements such as the fire station doors and slab level have been repaired and modified rather than replaced and sourcing of local and recycled materials minimizing energy consumption in addition to an allowance of solar power in the future when funding allows.

Acknowledgement of the project through varies media releases, international and national awards (architecture, museum design and building construction) and international exhibition at the Venice Biennale 2023 (Australian Pavilion) has an expanded on the projects design impact for the Central Goldfields Shire promoting the impact of design within the state of Victoria. The project contributes to the reputation of regional Victoria’s creative design culture, Victorian heritage buildings and Indigenous cultures through this project the clients, artists, curators, visitors and society.

This project as an adaptable reuse outcome, is a sustainability imperative reducing the necessity of excessive new carbon footprint and restoration of the land and site.

The design attitude adopted a reducing our use of materials where possible for the 1861 Maryborough Fire Station and Bell Tower for regional Victoria. Design strategies highlighted the act of erasing the unnecessary rather than adding to the embodied energy of the project and reducing carbon emissions. The adaptive re-use of an old buildings is a major benefit to society through the embodied carbon in the original build.

The preservation of the historic building, includes the revealing of the original structure and the historical red bricks that were demolished in the process for the new gallery program were reused avoiding removal and waste. This original red bricks were used to create new walls, and archways minimizing waste from the outset. Elements such as the fire station doors, original ceiling lining to the permanent collect gallery and slab level were repaired and restored rather than replaced.

The circular economy ties the sourcing and procurement of local and recycled materials was promoted by the design team with the builder (Searle Bros) including an allowance for minimising energy consumption through an allowance of solar power in the future when funding allows.