A decking solution from Auswest Timbers will be installed at this year’s MPavilion in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens.
Selected by Stirling Prize winner Amanda Levete, the architect behind some of London’s highly anticipated and futuristic projects, Auswest Timbers Silvertop Ash decking has been supplied to Kane Constructions who will build the timber deck triangles for the flooring of the installation’s forest canopy concept. The latest technology in nautical engineering will be used to create the sensation of a forest canopy.
Levete explains that their MPavilion 2015 is designed to create the sensation of a forest canopy, made up of seemingly fragile, translucent petals supported by impossibly slender columns that sway gently in the breeze.
According to Levete, by exploiting the temporary nature of the pavilion form, their design subverts the norms of immovable, embracing and amplifying such distinctions, so that it speaks in response to the weather, and moves with the wind rather than trying to keep it at bay.
Part of a range of decking products produced by Auswest Timbers from the sustainably managed state forests in Western Australia and Victoria, Silvertop Ash decking is environmentally certified to International Standards. Some of the advantages of Silvertop Ash include durability and stability; compliance with the requirements for bushfire prone areas; and compatibility with any architectural style or décor.
Amanda Levete, founder and principal of AL_A, is best known for her $80 million redesign of the entrance to the Victoria and Albert Museum and the futuristic media centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground.
MPavilion is the brainchild of Sportsgirl/Sussan Group CEO and Melbourne philanthropist Naomi Milgrom AO, who is passionate about design and architecture. Every year, an outstanding architect is commissioned through the Naomi Milgrum Foundation to design a temporary pavilion for the Queen Victoria Gardens in the centre of Melbourne’s Southbank Arts Precinct.
MPavilion will be open to the public from October 5, 2015 to February 7, 2016.