Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey

Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Exterior PhotographyPink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Image 3 of 29Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Exterior PhotographyPink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Exterior PhotographyPink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - More Images+ 24

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Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Exterior Photography
© Derek Swalwell

Text description provided by the architects. A beautiful architectural installation, replete with a pink pond evocative of Australia’s inland salt lakes, has been revealed as the winner of the NGV’s 2021 Architecture Commission in the Grollo Equiset Garden at NGV International. Designed by a Melbourne-based team comprising architecture firm Taylor Knights in collaboration with artist James Carey, the installation, entitled pond[er], offers a space for visitors to cool off during the summer months and reflect on their relationship with the environment.

Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Waterfront
© Derek Swalwell
Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Image 3 of 29
© Derek Swalwell

Referencing Sir Roy Grounds’s open-air courtyards in the original design of NGV International, this architecture and landscape installation comprises two key design elements: a body of indigenous plants and a body of water. The body of water is coloured pink, making direct reference to the many inland salt lakes in Victoria and highlighting the scarcity, importance and political implications of water as a natural resource. The installation also includes beds of Victorian wildflowers, designed in association with Ben Scott Garden Design, that bloom at different times throughout the installation seeks to highlight the beauty, precariousness and temporality of our natural ecology.

Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Exterior Photography
© Tom Ross

Envisioned as a space that becomes part the NGV garden rather than a separate architectural object, pond[er] invites audiences to move through a series of interconnected walkways and accessible platforms. Visitors can immerse themselves within and explore the spaces of flora and water and can even step down and wade through the pink pond.

Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Exterior Photography
© Derek Swalwell
Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Exterior Photography
© Tom Ross

In response to the 2021 competition brief, the materials that have been selected for the project are locally sourced and manufactured, and, wherever possible, are intended to be distributed and used again by various Landcare, Indigenous and community groups upon deinstallation, including the Willam Warrain Aboriginal Association. 

Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Exterior Photography
© Tom Ross

Each year, the annual commission is selected via a two-stage national competition, in which architects or multi- disciplinary teams are invited to submit a design for an engaging temporary structure or installation to activate the NGV’s Grollo Equiset Garden, one of Melbourne’s great civic and cultural spaces.

Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey - Exterior Photography
© Derek Swalwell

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Address:180 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne VIC 3006, Australia

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Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
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Cite: "Pink Pond / Taylor Knights + James Carey" 14 Dec 2021. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/973567/pink-pond-taylor-knights-plus-james-carey> ISSN 0719-8884

© Tom Ross

维多利亚国立美术馆前,粉色水池 / Taylor Knights + James Carey

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