Location \ Burnie, Tasmania
Client \ Terroir and North West Museum and Art Gallery Burnie
Budget \ N/A
Duration \ 2019 – 2020

Great landscapes, like museums, connect people to their local environment, culture and city context. Burnie is transitioning from its past in mineral and timber extraction, to find a new identity in arts, local sustainability and as the gateway to the Tasmanian Wilderness. RWA is working in conjunction with Terroir Architects.

The North West Museum and Art Gallery (NWMAG) is proposed to a new form of cultural space by harnessing the power of the heritage and creative sectors, through various forms of creative expression and process and by offering a wide variety of cultural and creative programming.

Importantly it will invite its visitors to explore, research and educate themselves about their past, their present circumstances and their future. This is only the starting point for exploring the region!

We were inspired to draw upon the unique geological process that created the landscapes and rock formations of Burnie. The expressive power of the folded basaltic columns and their resultant cracks and crevices that form ecological niches for plants to grow show how architecture and nature can be integrated in new and interesting ways.

The plaza and public places around the museum are designed to innovate in bringing the stories that are told inside outside. They will be flexibility and adaptable outdoor spaces that work day‐to‐day for individuals, and which are also capable of being programmed in many ways for events of different sizes.

The landscape surrounding NWMAG will establish an immersive landscape, populated with plants typical to the north west of Tasmania that will contribute to the local biodiversity of the site, combined with forms and materials that draw on the many unique geological formations that support these ecologies across the region.

This palette of planting and materials will form a distinct new character and identity for the setting of the cultural and arts activities and civic life of the plaza.

Render image below by Terroir