BUILDING 18 PENTRIDGE COBURG DESIGN COMPETITION
1st Place
Completion: 2019
The redevelopment of Pentridge Prison presents many unique and exciting opportunities. Originally designed to contain the country’s most notorious criminals, the site is being transformed into a community hub, inviting people to explore its fresh social areas and open public spaces.
Essentially, the future of the site will become the antithesis of its past.
Attracted by this dichotomy, the proposed design explores the concept of inverting the image of a prison. With this in mind, we have formed a response that is both sympathetic to the site’s original buildings and history, and compliments the new masterplan.
In focusing on the concept of “inverse”, the solid mass that would form the typical prison footprint is replaced with open space, and the areas around the footprint become the building that houses the functional requirements of the brief.
This theme of contrast in the design is further explored in form and elevation. The site’s historical buildings are typified by large, heavy bluestone walls with small arched openings that are screened by thick steel bars. The proposed design features a contemporary building that is embraced by a transparent veil of light steel angles, reminiscent of prison bars, which frame enjoyable spaces filled with dappled light for people to explore rather than escape.
The proposed scheme explores the inverse of the site’s existing buildings in terms of materiality and quality of space, but simultaneously references the original materials. While the external skin of the form is transparent and light, bluestone blocks that are synonymous with Pentridge’s existing facades are reused, and sawn to provide a refined finish, to become a feature in the new internal barrel vaulted central hall.
The hall ghosts the footprint of the site’s historical buildings, evoking the memory of the existing arched corridors that once serviced places of isolation for individuals locked in prison blocks. Our proposal will see the barrel vault that forms the central hall service light filled rooms that house the public amenities, places for the surrounding community to gather and share experiences; collectively creating a new history and meaning for the site.