GAV NGV ARCHITECTURE COMMISION
2015
‘Open, adaptable, and collective, GAV is for everyone.’
GAV reimagines the NGV Summer Pavilion as a system rather than an object. Working with the existing structure by John Wardle Architects, the project proposes a direct act of reuse—transforming what would otherwise be dismantled into a new and active piece of public infrastructure.
The existing grid shell is inverted and extended into a series of intersecting arches, forming a lightweight tensile canopy within the Grollo Equiset Garden. Suspended beneath, a dense field of technicoloured polypropylene cords produces a spatial condition that is immersive, tactile, and constantly shifting. The resulting figure reads as both structure and atmosphere—a suspended spectrum that resolves, at scale, into a continuous field of colour.
Developed at the time of Australia’s national postal plebiscite on marriage equality, GAV quietly aligns itself with a broader cultural moment. The canopy stretches horizontally across the site as a collective plane, its chromatic intensity recalling the rainbow not as symbol alone, but as shared ground. Less image, more occupation.
By day, GAV operates as a fully climbable structure. Informal and open-ended, it invites play, rest, and accidental encounters. Bodies move across it, through it, beneath it, testing its limits and redefining its use. By night, the same system is reprogrammed. The net becomes an auditorium, a bar, a gathering space, hosting performance, film, and social life.
The project draws a lineage to Roy Grounds’ NGV waterwall, extending its invitation to touch. Architecture is not observed, but entered. Not protected, but occupied. A place where proximity, contact, and collective presence are fundamental.
In this context, GAV establishes a temporary civic room, open, inclusive, and permissive. Its elevated plane and central void produce moments of gathering that oscillate between the informal and the ceremonial.
Without prescription, it takes on the spatial qualities of an altar, a place of assembly, of witnessing, of union, set against a national moment in which that union was publicly debated and ultimately affirmed.
Materially, the project sits between the digital and the handmade. Parametric systems define the overall geometry, while the cords are installed and continually reworked by hand, allowing the structure to evolve over time. It is never finished, only adjusted.
GAV is inherently sustainable. It begins with what is already there and asks it to do more. Beyond the commission, the structure anticipates a second life as public infrastructure, play equipment, shade, or event space, extending its value beyond a single season.
At its core, GAV is a framework for occupation. A shifting field of colour, light, and movement that changes across the day, across seasons, and across audiences.
Open, adaptable, and collective, GAV is for everyone.
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PAVILION
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COMPETITION
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WURUNDJERI | MELBOURNE | VICTORIA
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STRUCTURAL ENGINEER | CO-STRUCT
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MARCH STUDIO
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