Sydney-based practice Tzannes will create a dramatic private art storage facility for prominent arts philanthropist Judith Neilson, director of the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney’s Chippendale.
The storage warehouse in an unnamed location in Sydney’s inner city will have 10,000 square metres of space for Neilson’s collection of contemporary Chinese art. The building’s design will reference the surrounding warehouse typology.
“The brief was ambitious,” said Alec Tzannes, director of Tzannes. “We were asked to design a state-of-the-art working building with a 100-year life, that would store the client’s growing collection for a minimum of 50 years, and at the same time, an exceptional experience of viewing and interacting with art for both staff and visitors.
“What we have done here is bring the potential of art and architecture together, in a new form,” he continued. “Our aim was to reinterpret what a functional art storage facility does, creating a new typology that would also serve other collection-related purposes.”
The facility, to be named Dangrove, has been designed as a creative environment for curation, conservation and interaction. In a departure from traditional warehouses, the storage rooms in the facility are intended to display art and occasionally host private events.
Dangrove by Tzannes.
The building will be made from a concrete linear volume that floats above a ground level defined by steel blades. It will feature a 90-metre-long Great Hall, which will serve as a grand space for temporarily displaying, evaluating and curating art. The Great Hall will be clad in a polycarbonate double wall system, which allows natural light to penetrate the space but blocks 99 percent of UV rays.
The hall will have a stepped ceiling, which soars in height from eight metres at the lower end to 30 metres at the other end.
The building is also designed to be energy efficient, with a low carbon footprint, and able to be adaptively reused, should the building cease to function as a warehouse.
Construction on the art storage facility has begun and it is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.
Neilson is also funding the development of a $32 million art gallery and performance space in Chippendale, designed by John Wardle Architects, Durbach Block Jaggers, Janet Laurence and Khai Liew.
