Skip to main content

                    Artworks

                    Artwork of two glass vessels containing swirling clear liquid
                    Art is integrated into the fabric of CH2, complementing and extending the building beyond its engineering and architectural aspirations.

                    ​​​​​Artists were selected to participate in the project via a formal selection process. Selected artists worked closely with the design team while developing and finalising their designs.

                    Artwork and artist details

                    Concierge desk – David Emery and DesignInc

                    The timber for the concierge desk was salvaged from elm trees being replaced in Swan Street, as part of the City of Melbourne’s replacement program.

                    Full size drawings were prepared showing the inner and outer profile of each of the fifty levels of the desk, each level in a different colour ink.

                    These profiles were traced onto small sections cut from the partly decomposed timber, which were then hand sawn, sanded and finished, before being dry screwed into the desk.

                    The concierge desk has a pod-like organic shape and is built from many thin layers of wood

                    Documentation – Tom Carment

                    Tom was commissioned to document the construction of CH2 through sketches, paintings and diary notes. Over the two years of construction, he visited the site and captured the building from its earliest stages of excavation through to its completion.

                    Many of the works are now hanging on the walls of CH2 and an archive of the remaining artworks are housed at the City of Melbourne Repository.

                    For more information see Tom Carment's website.

                    Several of Tom Carment's documentation paintings hung on a wall.

                    Double Vortex – Cameron Robbins

                    Double Vortex forms part of the wall between the CH2 foyer and the café in reception on the ground floor.

                    The artwork comprises a pair of hand-blown glass water-vortex chambers, stainless steel framework, recycled Kauri pine table-top and cedar ply, cast bronze pieces, water, plumbing lines, pumps with electric timers and low-voltage lighting. It holds 120 litres of tap-water in a reticulating system periodically changed.

                    By spinning the water and extracting it through the bottom, the piece produces both clockwise and anticlockwise spinning vortices. This alludes to the philosophical idea of binary opposites (such as +/-, male/female, north/south) and to the old-and-new-school alternative energy subtext of the CH2 project.

                    The double vortex, backlit and with water whirling in its two glass chambers. 

                    The double vortex in action with a crowd of people nearby. 

                    Hoardings – Cara Jones

                    The first work commissioned for CH2 was for the hoardings that surrounded the CH2 site throughout the construction period.

                    Cara Jones created a visual interpretation of the building site, the surrounds and the construction process of CH2, applied directly to the hoardings. Images were re-formatted a number of times during the construction period, enabling the public to get a feel for the nature of the development and offering a taste of what was to come.

                    Some of the hoardings, decorated with text and images, along the bottom of the building's construction site.

                    Roof landscape – David Wong

                    David’s work blurs the boundaries between art and horticulture. He worked with our landscape design team to develop a concept for the roofscape of CH2. The intention is that garden and art blend uniformly – it is not obvious where one begins and one ends.

                    Using a mixture of indigenous and non-indigenous plants suited to the light and climate conditions on the roof, the garden transitions between the formal built urban environment to less formal patterns echoing the bush.

                    The garden is made up of large organic stainless steel mesh climbing forms, with a flowing mesh curtain along the wall on the south side of the building, provide climbing frames for the plants. Stainless steel rings of varying sizes are attached to the mesh to create vortex shapes, echoing the organic forms and cycles occurring in nature.

                    A very large bluestone boulder has been sliced into flitches to create two installations providing spaces for plants to grow, in between and around the flitches.

                    The east core wall is considered to reflect the bush, with the use of bluestone rock caps and rusted steel columns. The west face of each of the turbine walls have the same treatment, so that if one is at the urban end looking towards the bush end, there is a series of ‘bush’ or ’dreaming’ walls. These blend harmoniously with the patina of naturally aged timbers, the neutral finish of concrete and the collection of climbers, foliage and grasses.

                    The roof landscaping showing several of the sliced boulders with grasses growing among the flitches, and the steel frame for climbing plants overhead and yellow wind turbines alongside

                    Waterveil – Janet Laurence

                    Waterveil forms the glass wall behind the concierge desk in the CH2 ground floor reception area. The artwork creates a transparent atmospheric membrane that expresses and reveals hydrology processes, in particular the blackwater recycling treatment utilised in CH2.

                    A series of vertical overlapping glass panels form the Waterveil wall of the foyer. Over these are hanging or standing glass panels scripted with metallic texts of the chemical symbols, indicating the elements removed in the black water treatment.

                    These panels carry a series of poured fluids in colours of water and chemistry overlaying the chemistry images on the white star fired glass panels beneath.

                    The Waterveil glass panels next to the concierge desk, lit from behind by sunlight.

                      Was this page helpful?

                      If you'd like to give more feedback or ask a question, please contact us.