Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Competition
Melbourne, Australia
The University of Melbourne
Competition 2015
Denton Corker Marshall was invited to participate in a design competition for the new Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. The proposed design is about movement and transparency, and expresses the energy, vitality and sensibility of music in built form, both internally and externally.
The body of the conservatorium is a cube-like form, eroded to reveal rooms, spaces, walkways, stairs, lifts, balconies and voids into the heart of the building. These forms combine to make a complex interactive and, in a sense, tactile composition that invites visual discovery.
The ‘public’ face of the conservatorium is a glass veil. This wraps two sides of the cube in a single sensuous sweep, subtly twisting and bending to create a clear sense of movement and harmony.
The veil, supported by a series of slender stainless steel canted columns, is glazed with frameless clear glass panels, fritted in a diminishing density of white frosting from near pure white at the top to clear at the base. In this way, the veil has a singular reading as a sculptural form.
