Butterfly Facade Wintergarden
Text Version
Melbourne-based Studio 505 has revamped the exterior of a the Wintergarden shopping centre, creating a complex study of the natural world. A small section of the overall facade art is visible in Edward Street.
With a brief to create a façade to reflect the shopping mall’s name – Wintergarden – the designers looked to a forest for inspiration. The resulting design ‘communicates the rich diversity of life’ and is simultaneously an abstract and ambiguous pattern, yet a coherent image.
Initially, visitors see vegetation that runs alongside the building, making it seem as though they are looking into a forest. While the compilation at first looks like a random juxtaposition of materials, on closer inspection it becomes evident that aspects are readable, like giant butterflies.
As the sun moves throughout the day, so too do patterns, highlights and shadows created by the interplay of panels and layers
Each of the panels were perforated to allow both natural light to pass through into the office space behind and to create a cohesive visual identity from street level. The end result is a geometric pattern that was distorted, pinched, bloated and morphed, that reinforced the relationship between abstract and organic, between geometry and fluidity.
