Friday 29 August 2014

A Day Out



Thought I would sandwich the sunset from 2 nights ago between the progress on the crochet spoke flowers. Such a beautiful calm evening, a prelude for spring!

Today has been an exceptionally busy day. Three months ago I booked in for a tour of the new South Australian Medical Health Research Institute (SAMHRI) and I showed you photos of the building here i took lots of photos of the external structure but today had the opportunity to see the inner workings


Three pods form part of the lower aspect of the building and the front foyer to the main pod is spacious. The  extremely large void  appears to house an inner building - the main functioning work space. A total of 1400 windows encase the building and give a very light infused and open feeling to the building. the cheese grater effect on the external building are designed to move to accommodate air flow and make the building environmentally friendly.
The building is built on aboriginal land and its use of colour were given by the aboriginal elders to represent earth sea and sky. Colour glimpse through the windowed panels and as part of the upper foyer area

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Looking down from the eight floor into the void of the foyer and the colours dedicated by the aboriginal elders seen through the many panels of glass and representative of each floor



Now I apologise in advance for so many photos of a staircase, but i love form and function and think that the structural beauty of this staircase speaks for itself. It just depends on which perspective you look at it!

Like a big corks screw the staircase is central and is designed to draw all layers/ levels of the building together in the ideal of collaboration and openness.

It just depends on which way you look at it!



Also of interest is the supporting structure of the building. The guide referred to these structures as flowers. The beams radiate throughout the building, with the angle becoming wider as the building grow upwards and are the support framework of the whole building.

Aboriginal artwork in area designated to aboriginal health research

One of the lab spaces visible on the tour.


The building supports over 600 researchers/ collaborators yet only offers only 20 carparks in an effort to reduce the carbon footprint.  The bike rack outside the building is well utilised, the tram runs past the door on one side of the building and the railway on the other




After my tour I walked to the botanic gardens and had lunch under this palm type tree. I would never had paid attention to it except for one of the branches had been pulled from the tree and was laying on the ground below. Then I got carried away with my camera , But I forgot to snap the name of the plant.






An arbour reflecting nature and a beautiful blue sky.

On to the Amazon  Lily room




 And some iron work panels one of the park entrances

A quick trip to the art gallery- these guys nailed it!



And to finish off - a rainbow of colour in the mineral room at the museum.





3 comments:

  1. Last year we were in Iceland. Have a look at the opera building in Reykjavik: it looks a lot like your building. Inside as well as outside.
    And the stairs are very great indeed, they ressemble the stairs in The Guggenheim in New-York.

    So you see: nothing is new really, every idea bubbles into another idea, a bit like the creativity in blogland.

    I have been looking very closely at the pictures of the aboriginal art, because I thought at first that it was an exposition of your work. It should be exposed, wonderful as it is.

    The spike art is great, once saw King Kong in a London museum, all spiked up and very very huge. I have also seen the same thing done with cloth's hangers, which was truly impressive.
    Seems like a great museum.Where is it? Love the flower room. And the wallpaper in the art gallery. (could also have been designed by Monique) :)




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  2. That research centre is housed in a really beautiful building. I wonder what those who work there think about it. Did you manage to speak to any of them?

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  3. my goodness that research center is a work of art! Gorgeous! I love how you caught the movement of the staircases :) Also love the "nail people".....interesting!!

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