Gathering Place

2022 National Architecture Awards: Small Project Architecture – Shortlist

Gathering Place | Penhale & Winter with Sandra Harben

Traditional Land Owners: the Whadjuk people of the Nyoongar nation

Gathering Place by Penhale & Winter and Whadjuk Noongar elder Sandra Harben was an invitation to gather in one of the city’s largely forgotten public spaces. Commissioned by the Fremantle Biennale, the proposal was conceived through a cross cultural conversation, an extended yarn between the project’s three authors.

The project, an unbroken sinuous seating arrangement, was situated within a quarried amphitheatre on Dwerda Weelardinup (Cantonment Hill), adjacent to the bilya (river). Inscribed along its length, a Love Letter to Place stitched together observations from site with deeply felt callings to Country. Physically gathering and binding elements of the site; a limestone edge, a significant Moreton Bay fig, she-oak trees and fragmented river views, the commission offered the public varied opportunities to meet, to engage in conversation or sit in quiet reflection, surrounded by the ebb and flow of changing diurnal rhythms.

Client perspective:
How does the design benefit the way you live/work/play/operate/educate/other?

Gathering Place formed the major architectural component of the 2021 Fremantle Biennale and connected strongly with the overarching Biennale themes of site-responsive practice and cross-cultural collaboration. It provided a quiet, adaptable and accessible space within the Biennale activation zone for events and gatherings of various size and type. Conceptually and spatially compelling, the work was exemplary in regards to depth of research, quality of documentation, cost and post-Biennale considerations.
Furthermore, the essence of the work could be found in the strong friendship formed by the co-authors and the way they cared for one another in the practice of their relationship.