Notes from Half Time Club presentation, Melbourne, AUGUST 2000

It seemed to us that there were ambiguous desires in this competition- unsureness about whether any buildings were actually wanted, and what this public space was for, other than to fulfill some destiny for the precinct.
To begin with we took a series of positions regarding the competition and its intentions
Only Stage one would go ahead – Stage 2 unresolved, and unfunded – and subject to further beaurocratic process.
We began to like the idea of a plaza without an immediate infrastructure-without the City from which it is traditionally defined.
The plaza became self contained -an object which might read as a building from outside it, and get some token protection from inside-the space was seen as an interior surface and a tray- the building with its own forecourt.

THE FAILED URBAN SPACE
More importantly this would be a failed urban space – In terms of the Griffins’ plan, in terms of well mannered urban design – it should be a disaster. It is the space where the parliament should be (or rather should be where the parliament is – It is the space that nothing could save, the space we had to have.
A place where all the passive things envisaged would just seem wrong – but where a moment, an event no one could plan for, might be possible.
We thought of the Old Parliament, and Whitlam on the steps in 1975, and Norman Gunstan in the background, and knew this would never happen again.
We thought of the farmers storming the front doors, and getting right into the legislature
We thought of the New parliament – and the vast plazas where nothing real happens
And the guy driving through the front doors,
We thought also of the guy who stole an armoured personnel carrier in Perth and drove into the police headquarters before cruising down St George’s Terrace,
and the guy who landed an aeroplane in Red Square….
We thought of the Tent Embassy, and what this project would do that building

MORE CANBERRA THAN CANBERRA
Thinking of Canberra from a distance, we liked it the more we thought of it. Not the Canberra of Griffins’ idea, but the series of experiments as they exist, of exceptions. We were conscious also of the sense that this project was already designed, and redesigned-pre-destined.
How to be more Canberra than Canberra- how to comply as a method of being critical , as much reinforcing.
We took on board the overscaling, the dumb diagram read at 1 to 10 000, the axial obsession (or the non-wandering line), and the desire for non-building, with the hope that an exaggeration of this might yield something new, might suggest that the overblown new parliament didn’t have to be that bad.
The desire for a clear view to the parliamentary axis informed also the setting out of the buildings- off-centre, and fronting the water, while being invisible from the land side.
In doing this, we were nostalgic in foregrounding the Old Parliament House, especially in response to the frontal elevation. The trapezoidal plaza surface is intended to read when foreshortened as a forecourt to the building a couple of hundred metres away – the side walls scaled to the level of the parliament steps

THE OPTIMISM OF THE WINDSWEPT PLAZA
We viewed the space of unrelieved emptiness with optimism. Compared the Rockefeller Plaza –it is large and empty (6 times the area), compared with Red Square (which is nearly 8 times the area) it is small and empty.

The windswept plaza – that cliché of what we shouldn’t do, is invested with some interest- The public space remains sublime and nearly always vacant, waiting for an event of some magnitude, hopeful that it could stage something other than a torch relay ceremony. We though of landing a plane, or driving traffic across it. The plaza sits at grade at all its entry points (facing the old parliament, at the water and at the road crossing it. It forms a single ramping plane. It is undifferentiated and without a centre. The hope is that anything could happen equally here- and we, by not designing for that, could open some more possibility.
The desire for this emptiness informed also our treatment of the adjacent pergola and the Buildings on the other side.
THE BEACH (The fatal shore)
Sucked into the world of natural imagery in Giurgola’s project- full of the Interior, of the forest, -here we acknowledeged ourselves not as beach-lovers, but as boat-people, and provided possibly the world’s largest boat ramp, sliding gently into Lake Burley Griffin.
Apart from analogies with the Piazza San Marco nearly going under, the site for a landing seemed to open possibilities.
We thought of the Gallipoli landing, of the jetties blown up all along the west coast to stop world war 2 invasion, of the boat people some years ago, who landed near Broome and armed with a palm sized map of Australia, set out to walk to Adelaide.
And we could not forget Superstudio, and a vision of something sublime.
We imagined a hovercraft landing regularly on the plaza and the long March to Parliament House.
We thought of the Sydney Opera House sitting on the water without a plinth.
THE BEAUTY SPOT
The exception to the unrelieved emptiness is a single object- the absurd speaker’s corner, ( A nearly round platform 2metres in diameter housing services for the event-water, power, bin, cable modem) The beauty spot (as we referred to it) is deliberate imperfection of the skin inferring the seamlessness of the rest. The black spot on white Canberra maybe marks also a refusal to try and get it right, marking the emptiness, the pallor of the rest.
In tourist terms, and Beauty spot signals a photo opportunity, perhaps a picnic
THE SURFACE
The endless discussion of the grassed roof in Giurgola’s Parliament, and the apparent democratic readings of that, suggested the plaza as a kind of roof-a bit like a fragment of the Sydney Opera House’s surface actually is, composite of gold and white; a curved surface made flat – or maybe a triangulated, faceted surface made flat.
The inlaid red lighting strips of the plaza are intended at night to suggest a gangway, or runway.

THE NATIONAL PERGOLA – OUR BACKYARD EXPOSED
To reinforce the unrelieved emptiness of the plaza, another space was added – a National Pergola.
The pergola acts as the informal space – the market square – the place for a National Barbecue, the backyard to keep the front pristine.
At the lakes edge the Pergola projects onto the water forming the jetty for the proposed ferry service around Lake Burley Griffin. Together with the plaza we saw this as functioning as Griffin’s proposed “Water Gate.�? Except images of boat people landing on our isolated northern shores spring to mind providing a more surreal interpretation.
The surface under the Pergola would step down to the jetty in four levels. At the top level, the lawn of the surrounding landscape would continue underneath. The middle two levels are a dense crushed rock often used in urban

parks with kids running around with grazed knees, and on the bottom level the timber jetty would continue to form the finished surface.

A spot for brides and grooms to capture their special day.
Above, the pergola is set on a random grid of concrete columns and a weave of timber beams supporting a translucent polycarbonate roof. We thought of the materials used in most suburban backyard Pergolas and replicated them here.
A section of the pergola weave is removed “effectively crossed out�? a tribute to all that we have got wrong in the past.

THE BUILDINGS
Galleries and retail component are consolidated into a complex adjacent to the plaza, aimed at minimising the impact on the open site, and reinforcing the tradition of large building elements. As one element, the Exhibition Spaces are buried into the natural bank and grassed over, becoming invisible from the Parliament side. The only hint of a building underneath being the lawn sloping up and the start of a narrow rear pedestrian lane providing access, cut into it. Beyond the black rubber glad roof of the commercial pavilion comes into view. Squat and seeming to hover over the grass it suggest a non obstructive low lying building. The shop, cafes and restaurants inside form a separate two level strip facing the lake, from behind the line of international flags forming a galleria. In plan the buildings are skewed as if the force of the plaza has pushed them over. An expression of its primary importance along the Land Axis.
A two level circulation strip connects the two parts, providing efficient service lane access below, with visitor circulation above.
The three exhibition spaces proposed are intended as flexible gallery rooms, which can operate quite independently, or as one series of connecting halls.
These are accessed via a lobby on the lakefront strip (which also contains visitor information and facilities) as well as from an upper level laneway (walkway) running at grade from the high end of the plaza.
From the front (the lake side), the buildings are more substantial. They are pressed up against the lake creating a dense urban context. (Again Griffin’s idea of a “Water-Gate�? being an influence), and in elevation we add to what seems like a series of buildings sitting on top of each other. On the facade the moiré interference pattern (interpreted in glass and steel mullions) along with the Flag poles act in a similar manner to the treatment of the plaza surface from a distance it interferes with the view without blocking it.
PATHWAYS
The project expands beyond the site boundaries with pedestrian paths defining links between other facilities. A series of paved strips define paths from the new plaza to King Edward Terrace around the reflection pools. Additionally, a network of straight and wandering paths create an axis between the National Library and the National Gallery of Australia rather than a large and wide band cross-axis (inferred by the brief) connecting these two institutions.

Do we need to conclude?
In concluding I will quote James Weirick from his essay “Don’t You Believe It: Critical Response To The New Parliament House�? in Transition 27/28 from 1989
“The emptiness, the nothingness of this space is not unfamiliar, it is all part of the emptiness, the nothingness of the Canberra experience, all part of the horror at the heart of our great darkness.�?