“Glenn’s very thoughtfully considered MPavilion reflects everything the world has come to love and appreciate about his distinctly Australian design practice over fifty years. I’m excited to bring a new Glenn Murcutt design to life for the community to share.”
Murcutt’s design has inspired MPavilion’s program themes for its 2019/20 season of free events and will open in the Queen Victoria Gardens, Southbank Arts Precinct, on 14 November 2019 until 22 March 2020.
Taking on a second life, the MPavilion at the end of each season is then gifted by the Foundation to the public. Becoming a legacy of architect-designed pavilions for the state of Victoria, the series enables design awareness to continue into new communities for years to come.
MPavilion is supported by major partners City of Melbourne, the State Government of Victoria through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria, and ANZ. Bringing the pavilion to fruition, design and construction partners include structural engineers AECOM, specialist tensile roof fabric advisor Temple Architecture, surveyors AAM Group and builders Kane Constructions.
Overall Geometry.-
- The pavilion will have a rectangular footprint with a total useable covered floor area of approx. 230m2 (24mx 9.6m).
- The overall roof area is 315.9m2 (10.6m wide x 29.8m long).
- The maximum roof height will be approx. 3.9m with a maximum internal ceiling height of 2.5m.
The pavilion design has the following components.-
- Steel framed structure with steel columns spaced at 4.8m centres to form portal frames.
- Wing‐like curved trusses to form the roof structure supported on the columns and provide the pavilion with 2.4m eaves on each side.
- The roof eaves will have a stainless steel garnet‐bead blasted finish creating a slick, sharp finish to the roof perimeter.
- The roof trusses will be wrapped in a translucent tensile roof membrane fabric to the top (Serge Ferrari Flexlite 702 S2).
- The internal ceiling panels will be suspended from the underside of the roof trusses. The ceiling will have translucent white Ceconite fabric stretched taut over sub frame panels.
- LED lighting will be concealed between the ceiling and roof panels to create the effect of a glowing lantern.
- The pavilion has no walls along the 2 long sides.
- The south elevation will be fitted with retractable blinds to provide weather protection when required.
- The north elevation will remain unobstructed at all times and will frame views of the Melbourne skyline.
- At each end of the pavilion, external walls and timber slat pivot doors will conceal a space approximately 4.8m wide by 1m deep to store back‐of‐house equipment and the kiosk facilities.
- The floor will have 1200mm long x 400mm wide concrete pavers within a 1m wide outside perimeter of river pebbles.
Materials
- Serge Ferrari Flexlite 702 S2 (white) has been specified as the tensile roof fabric.
- The ceiling fabric is Ceconite ‐ a synthetic material the same weight as cotton and is heat‐shrunk to fit. It has a translucent characteristic.
- The blinds are Weiner Vertitex 2 rope model fittings and will use the Serge Ferrari Soltis 86 ‐ 2044 white fabric which is semi‐ transparent.
