Architecture AU: Cumulus Studio designs golden chainmail pavilion for Roy Grounds’s Arts Centre
25 July, 2018
Extract: Cumulus Studio has won a design competition for a new café in the forecourt of the Roy Grounds-designed Arts Centre, which occupies a prominent site on St Kilda Road in central Melbourne. The structure will replace a temporary plastic gazebo that the café operated in for more than a decade.
In May, Arts Centre Melbourne announced that it was looking for designs that would make Cento “more comfortable for customers, increase its serving capacity and project a more generous civic presence, in keeping with its location.”…
Cumulus director Keith Westbrook said the proposal, titled The Protagonist, “uses the café to create an opportunity for the theatre to have a presence on the street, by drawing upon the familiar aspects of the theatre to engage with the passing public and to create a new visitor experience relating to [the Arts Centre]’s brand.”…
Inspired by theatre curtains, the design includes a curtain façade made from Kaynemaile, a fire and UV resistant polycarbonate mesh, originally used as chainmail costumes in the Lord of the Rings movies.
