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Pendal and Neille
Two Perth architects have created a new arts centre in the heart of the city that draws on Perth’s rich cannon of brick buildings to create compelling spaces where natural light can dance and play, and that inspire the building’s occupants and visitors in their creative endeavours.
Architects Simon Pendal and Stephen Neille aim to produce memorable and intense architecture and interior spaces, and these qualities underpin their design for the Grey-Smith Institute for creative arts.
“We were inspired by light that dances, space that surrounds you, and brick structures that endure,” says Stephen Neille. “We were interested in exploring how something as durable as brick can work with the ephemerality of light, and in investigating the intensity and configuration of spaces that you can achieve using brick elements.”
Situated in Wolf Lane, a thoroughfare that connects King, Murray and William Streets and which is lined with predominantly red brick structures, their design comprises a new civic institution and adjacent public space. “We wanted to create a building that joins the ensemble of existing enduring brick structures in Perth and makes a compelling work that’s memorable,” Neille says. “This new centre is a small civic institute that would draw people into the laneway for events, gallery shows, presentations and parties.”
The four-storey building is constructed in Geraldton ‘Millennium Grey’ bricks with interiors of ‘white’ Euroa glazed bricks. It incorporates unusual façade treatments, window openings and skylights to produce varied and shifting light effects throughout.
The lower ground floor is occupied by gallery spaces, the first and second floors accommodate administration and archive functions respectively, and the third floor houses the artist-in-residence program. All four levels are connected by a circular staircase that is bathed in a warm dappled glow.
Both the gallery and studio spaces feature barrelled and parabolic arches which produce stimulating realms for creative pursuits. They are naturally lit from above by ‘snorkels’ that funnel intense light into these spaces, creating a ‘light column; effect that appears to carve through the air before pooling on the floor.
“We wouldn’t typically use vaulted ceilings but we made vaulted spaces which are quite powerful and memorable,” Neille explains. “Brick allowed us to find new spatial possibilities.
“Bricks are so durable: they provide a permanent base against which the ephemerality of light can play,” he adds. “They can also, as individual units, be used to configure spaces that really surround you, spaces that vault, spring, curve and move, where light plays on the surface.”
The longevity of bricks also results in a positive environmental outcome, Neille says. “Brick has quite a powerful ecological direction, if we don’t build poorly and have to knock buildings down all the time,” he says. “We would like to try and build once well, rather than again and again, and brick provides that durable material that lasts. If you create special places they’ll be visited over and over.”
With its constantly shifting arrangement of dappled, bent, reflected and brilliant light creating a mix of sombre, moody, elegant and inspiring spaces, the civic centre is sure to be as engaging as the works and creative people that inhabit it.
