Local architects win national design award

Shamus Mulcahy and baby James Mulcahy at the Geeveston Child and Family Centre. Photograph by Peta Heffernan

LIMINAL SPACES was awarded Best of State Commercial Design at the 2014 Australian Interior Design Awards for the Geeveston Child and Family Centre, wayraparattee.

The awards were held at a special gala event at the Hilton Sydney on Friday 16 May.

Co-presented by the Design Institute of Australia, designEX and Artichoke magazine, the Australian Interior Design Awards recognise the outstanding work of Australia’s design professionals and celebrate excellence in Australian interior design.

In addition LIMINAL SPACES was the only Tasmanian practice shortlisted for the national Public Design category.

The client for the project was the Department of Education.

wayraparattee was funded through the Indigenous Early Childhood Development National Partnership Agreement. The purpose of the Child and Family Centre is to improve the learning, care, health and wellbeing of Tasmania’s very young children by supporting parents and enhancing accessibility of services in the southern Huon area.

The community was heavily involved from the project’s beginnings in all aspects of decision making, ensuring the long term success beyond project handover.

Anna Jones, the Centre Leader says that this engagement has had lasting impact on those involved, ‘Community members who were involved in the design process continue to proudly walk around pointing out the parts of the building that they had some involvement in.’

LIMINAL SPACES believes investment in communities is critical, ‘wayraparattee is a unique public project – it invites the community in and provides a supportive social network. The interior is tailored to suit the services on offer and at the same time it welcomes the community it serves. It is very personal and finely grained. This was only made possible through intensive community consultation.’

Anna described the underpinning principles for this project to be, ‘The environment is a teacher, and children deserve beautiful spaces to learn in.’

Anna goes on further to say that ‘Precious spaces should not just be reserved for museums and libraries. Providing a beautifully designed building for our local families demonstrates the value of our families, how much we respect them.’

The design of the Geeveston Child and Family Centre carefully arranges domestically scaled spaces providing for a range of activities to be run concurrently. A mother and baby group might be in full swing at the same time that someone is visiting the psychologist.

The extensive use of local celery top pine for internal wall linings and joinery supports the local forestry industry and fits with the clients’ brief, ‘Even at its busiest times the centre remains calming. I believe it has to do with the use of timber’, Anna said.

‘The interior is strong, calm and unpretentious allowing for even our most marginalised families to feel safe in the space.’ Anna Jones.

LIMINAL SPACES forms part of LIMINAL STUDIO, along with LIMINAL ARCHITECTURE and LIMINAL GRAPHICS.
Elvio Brianese, Peta Heffernan, liminalstudio.com.au