menu

Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria

Australian Garden Pavilions

Projects

The Australian Garden is a 25-hectare contemporary botanic garden in the outer-Melbourne suburb of Cranbourne.

It was designed by landscape architects TCL, who are friends and frequent collaborators with BKK, and has won multiple national and international design awards.

The clearly structured garden combines water with an entirely native landscape. It’s arranged as a journey from Australia’s barely occupied desert interior to the more constructed coastlines.

A range of other designers, landscape architects, architects and artists have also contributed artworks, built elements or display gardens.

BKK has designed three shelters within it, including a recent extension to the largest one.

Client
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria
Location
Cranbourne, VIC
Country
Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung
With
TCL
Year
2012

Unlike most architectural commissions, our work responds directly to the landscape rather than vice versa. Our designs explore what shelter is and the history of shelter from its most primitive forms to the more contemporary vernacular.

The first shelter is a simple covered seating area that’s a gateway to the Gondwana area of the garden. It’s a rest space and also a bus stop for the small people mover that circumnavigates the garden.

A sculptured, weathered Corten steel shell provides a protective enclosure, lined with timber.

The second shelter is inside the Gondwana area, which represents a pre-human Australian setting. The structure appears as if it evolved from nature, out of the landscape.

A curve of tree trunks form a wall that traces the landscape design, and the large but impossibly thin steel roof appears to have settled on top, like a piece of leaf litter. The shelter is used for school groups, weddings and other events.

BKK and TCL have recently extended the third and largest shelter. It’s a kiosk, rest facility and children’s education area. It’s located in the most constructed landscape zone, which represents a more urban setting with backyards and buildings. The shelter is a reinterpretation of the Australian vernacular shed. The materials are layered from the rich timber that is part interior/part exterior to the brightly coloured kiosk to the toilets clad in plywood and stainless steel.

We originally designed the shelter to anticipate extension, and now we have added an outdoor all-weather dining area, which expands the Garden’s event options. It’s essentially an operable pergola with a roof that opens out in good weather. There are walls with zipper blinds to mitigate the strong local winds. We also extended the education facility. It’s a now flexible indoor/outdoor space with moveable furniture and fixed bespoke joinery, used to deliver the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria’s education program.

For

Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria

Sector

Urban Design & Infrastructure

Status

Completed

Year

2010 – 2012

Location

Cranbourne, VIC

Country

Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung

Photographer

John Gollings
Kieran Merriman