Coats of May Colours
Interview and photography by Tony Nielson
The rainbow boardwalk colours represent the Glenorchy environment
Thomas Bailey, co-founder of Room 11 Studio in Hobart, likes designing with wood because builders enjoy working with it. “And carpentry is the fundamental language of construction in Australia. If you don’t know carpentry then your don’t really know architecture.”
When we spoke to him, he had just finished a presentation to the ‘Spirit of Place’ regional AIA conference in Cairns, and it was clear that timber plays a significant role in the “blunt and unapologetic” work his firm is known for.
Thomas Bailey, architect
The recently completed $8 million Glenorchy Art and Sculpture Park (GASP!) features a sweeping 800 metre ‘rainbow boardwalk’ that ties together the edges of Elwick Bay on the Derwent River. It links GASP!, the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) and a new ferry jetty.
The long, low, gracefully sweeping boardwalk is a kaleidoscope of brightly painted timber balusters representative of nearby Glenorchy’s diverse community.
“As it would be a piece of high-identity public infrastructure, we wanted to build something people would have ownership for – and hopefully not vandalise,” says Bailey of the collaborative project between Room II and Megan Baynes, which also includes a number of timber-based pavilions.
The boardwalk stretches above the river
“We had to pare back the brief to its essentials and used lower-cost materials – including H6 treated radiate pine for the boardwalk deck and the balusters. Fundamentally, we were quite happy with the look of [unfinished] timber but we needed to articulate the boardwalk, and paint has given quality to the raw pine.”
Although there are some 44 carefully choreographed colours rolling along the structure, most are confined to inner faces of the balusters, with outer surfaces mostly black. This offers distinctly different viewing experiences depending on the angle of approach.
Black-painted outward-facing edges give a different perspective
Bailey’s firm has also designed some 80 projects in Tasmania, where he says the landscape is so special it is often more important than the architecture: “We are just ‘furnishing’ it.”
His passion for timber extends to a surprising “love” for the framing stage of the job. “When I was young my parents moved to a growing suburb, and seeing the freshness and transparency of the bare essentials of a dwelling has stayed with me.
“There is a real pleasure from an artistic point of view in being able to see through a structure and view its relationship to place. The lightness and fragility of a [timber] frame in the early stages has its own charm.”
Where possible, Bailey specifies locally sourced wood to reduce the carbon footprint, and his favourite is the three-species group of eucalypts known as Tasmanian (or Australian) oak.
H6 treated radiata pine balusters in coats of 44 colours
But he sees important changes ahead. “It is very clear what’s going on in terms of timber construction. Stud framing is a technique from when materials were expensive and labour was cheap. Now, materials compared to income are quite cheap and labour is quite expensive, so we need materials of the character of timber that also allow more efficient construction.”
He is referring to the arrival of products such as cross-laminated timber (CLT), which have sparked a new “materiality” agenda at Room II. “We have done a lot of strict, modern work and we’re moving towards a more tangible and materially focused architecture, with more character. It is all about experience as designers – we have greater skill at putting a building together and now we are ready to put things together in a different way.”