Immersion
Personal Info
Name: Antoine Portier
Nationality: French, Australian
Institution / Company: @sadd_collective
Instagram: @antoine_australia
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoine-portier-76aaa7a8/
Name: David Cadena
Nationality: Colombian, Australian
Institution / Company: @sadd_collective
Instagram: @david.hcg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-cadena-3b5a4087/
-HONOURABLE MENTION of Non Architecture Award Competition | Category: Landscape
Circular quay, in Sydney, can be read as the City and harbour’s key interface. In a city that markets and celebrates its relationship to a harbour, the project offers more than the opportunity of approach, proposing instead sensory immersion.
The proposal responds to its context, lowering the existing waterfront sea wall and repurposing the concrete platform and structure of the Overseas Passenger’s Terminal to form an underwater artificial reef. This artificial reef, home to marine life, will be observable from Immersion. The proposal becomes a floating island, detached from the shoreline and partially submerged.
Located opposite, the design of the high platform and grand stairs of the Sydney Opera House, were partly inspired by Mayan pyramids, aiming to “free and raise buildings and people above everyday life”. Extending this narrative, immersion proposes an inverted monumental gesture – a playful counterpoint to a site seeming to call for an iconic object.
Each room of Immersion is designed to experience the ocean, its marine life, the movement of boats on the surface of the water, aquatic ecosystems, water flow, clouds and buoyancy.
“Immersion” reconsiders the conventional experience of cultural spaces in Sydney. Offering an immersive experience of the quay below sea level, and drawing critical attention to the harbour as a living element within the City. The project offers a space within the public domain to consider the harbour’s role in the life of the city and its future, both ecological and economic, in the face of global warming in the Anthropocene.
Project Type: Sensorial galleries expansion of the adjacent Museum of Contemporary Art of Australia.
