The Glasshouse: Arts Conference and Entertainment Centre | New South Wales, Australia |Tonkin Zulaikha Greer

Two large timber forms appear to float within the glass ‘skirt’ that defines the building’s perimeter, one housing the regional art gallery and the other the sumptuous 600 seat theatre. This box-in-a-box strategy is a familiar one in contemporary performing arts venues, where an outer façade provides weather protection. An interstitial space between external envelope and black-box theatre becomes foyer and circulation, a place for the audience to promenade and be on show. TZG has deployed this strategy before for the remarkable Carriageworks (2006) project. While the theatres at Carriageworks are sheer off-form white concrete set against a patina of brickwork and cast-iron, the rich inner shell of ship-lapped local timbers here contrasts sharply with the cool glass façade. In this sense the building is akin to Jean Nouvel’s Culture and Congress Centre in Lucerne – albeit at a more modest scale....more at ADR