Craigieburn Bypass
Infrastructure Case Study
Landscape Architects: Taylor Cullity Lethlean
Collaboration: Tonkin
Zuilahka Greer, Robert Owen
Client: Vic
Roads
Budget: $30.m
Design: 2002
Completion: 2005
The Federal Government as part of its commitment
to delivering a new freeway connection to Northern Melbourne, undertook
a competition for the design of a gateway element and noise attenuation
features.
This winning competition entry proposed a sequential
gateway experience, where boundaries were blurred between the expression
of functional wall, sculptural expression and gateway.
Our interest lay in interpreting our familiar
modes of practice; a formal composition/design and poetic reading
of the site, and how they might be informed by a project, largely
experienced at speed. In particular how otherwise static objects
begin to exhibit a dynamism or are activated by the travelling
motorist.
Two freeway edge conditions, the Merri Creek
Grasslands, and the northern residential expansion gave rise to
two sculptural walls, The Curtain Wall and The Scrim Wall.
The Curtain Wall, composed of faceted Cor-ten
panels is a light, fluid, ribbon, a dynamic travelling companion.
A noise attenuation device, but also a transformative edge, a lightweight
screen, and landform, the Curtain Wall ultimately transforms into
a pedestrian bridge.
The Scrim Wall, located along the residential
interface, is a translucent screen that considers not only the
driving experience by also that of the resident.
The design is composed of an acrylic linear
screen offset by a rhythm of vertical louvres. The sandblasted
acrylic panels allow the transmission of light, reducing overshadowing
whilst the louvres provide a variety of microclimates for growing
conditions behind the wall.
Compositionally whilst static at a singular
view the louvres each slightly rotates on an axis, creating a constantly
changing appearance when driving past.
The project will be distinguished via the proposed ‘northern
lights’. Markings that are sandblasted onto the acrylic are
illuminated from below, whilst a transducer tracks the driving
conditions along the route which activate thousands of LED lighting
sequences on the acrylic screen.
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