2022 Nicholas Murcutt Award for Small Project Architecture

Jury citation

A pure expression of collaborative intentions between the architect and the Whadjuk people of the Nyoongar nation, Gathering Place is a perfectly scaled, ephemeral civic work. Often, where a story is expressed literally, humility and wonder are lost. Here, the simple gesture of a curvilinear form, which makes a place for story, is a powerful, nuanced and never-ending proposition.

Like an everlasting and ancient songline inextricably linked to its cultural landscape, this work by Whadjuk Nyoongar Elder Sandra Harben with Penhale and Winter is an expression of the infinity of story, cultural memory and togetherness. Both the process and the outcome reflect Harben’s intent to “walk softly, walk slowly, walk quietly.” The design locates a Moreton Bay fig tree as a witness to the stories and gatherings.

This small-scale work is considered in every regard: detailed to be partitioned from modular, economical materials, and still surviving after its removal, as fragmented elements gifted to community and collaborators across the continent.

As is so often the case with works of architecture, what commences as a simple brief ends as a spatial revelation: a seat in the shade of a tree becomes a single, continuous love letter to Country. A thread of poetry engraved into the seat echoes the river, the serpent, the cosmos; the scale of this work is simultaneously intimate and immense. Gathering Place is a subtle, considered architectural wonder, even in its ephemerality.

Project credits

Architect Penhale and Winter with Sandra Harben; Project team Drew Penhale, Shane Winter, Sandra Harben, Daniel Colley; Builder ICS Australia; Electrical consultant Techworks Electrical; Lighting consultant Alti Lighting; Structural engineer Burdett and Goodison Structural Engineers

Gathering Place is located in Fremantle, Western Australia on the land of the Whadjuk people of the Nyoongar nation.