Time Eddies
Time flows like a river. From high to low, from the past to the future. Does time ever stop, can we freeze time, and preserve the memories we treasure?
Does the river ever stop?
Yes, and no.
2022 Third Year Heritage Studio Project
Sometimes, the river forms a small eddy, it stops moving forward, but continues to flow in a circular motion.
Can we do the same with time, to create our own eddies?
The fly-fishing museum attempts to capture and stop the concept of time, preserving the treasured moments and histories. It creates a time eddy of its own, allowing us to relive in those precious memories.
This proposal is an adaptive-reuse project in Clarendon, Evandale. The brief requires the transformation of a heritage stable into a new fly-fishing museum to relocate an existing fly-fishing museum on site.
The new fly-fishing museum connects to the historical site’s past, extending and embracing the culture of fly-fishing. It also protects and prepares the site for the future by caring for the South-Esk River.
4-meter long analytique drawing of the project.
The Timeline
Floating Ramp and Ramp Rail
Reminders of the Past
Materiality
Spatial Relationship Among Exhibits
The Stable’s Identity
Clarendon’s Future
The River Cleaning Micro Factory
Located at the western side of the museum, a floating cantilevered ramp marks the entrance. The pathway up the ramp captures the view of the surrounding historical site. The building imagined itself as a timeline, like the flow of rivers. From low to high, left to right, past to present.
The ramp brings the visitors to the middle part of the building, or the ‘present’. From there, visitors are free to dive back into the ‘past’, or explore further into the ‘future.’
The Timeline
The ramp creates a floating, weightless effect by cantilevering off two beams on a huge base below the ground. In response to the floating theme, the ramp rail is designed to create a weightless effect as well.
Special bent metal sheet fixings support the handrail. It leaves a shadow gap and is fixed behind the ramp. Copper chains and copper weights hang from the handrail, while the silver metal sheet and concrete ramp disappears into sight, creating an illusion that the handrail was supported by the hanging chain and weights, floating in mid-air.
The Floating Ramp and Ramp rail
Reminders of the Past
One of the gallery spaces used to have a staircase. Although it was removed and the floor was covered and supported, the new materials subtly blend in while distancing itself from the old. There is a 20mm gap between the new and old flooring. And while they are the same timber, the new floor timber grain runs perpendicular to the old.
Spatial Relationship Among Exhibits
The gallery was arranged in periods, where the further left the visitors go, the further they go into the past, as if in a timeline. The enfilade allows the visitors to take a full view of the exhibits from the entrance, but not their front views. This encourages them to walk around and explore the gallery.
There were a few holes in the gallery that lead straight down to the stables, which was believed once to be a feeding area where food can be dropped down to feed the horses.
Instead of getting rid or covering the hole to suit the new program, the hole was preserved and exhibited to remind visitors of the museum’s previous identity.
A 10mm glass sheet covers the hole. It was elevated 20mm off the ground via a double steel column, and supported though a steel beam bolted to the timber beams a floor below.
When viewed on the first floor, it was as if the glass was hovering above the ground, creating a sense of distinctness between the new and the old material.
The Stable’s Identity
Why does museums always stop at the past? Can we break through our timelines and explore the future? If the visitors turn to their right, they will be led by another ramp to the river.
The South Esk River has been polluted by heavy metals. The river that was one of the first places for Tasmanian trout to swim in, the river that ultimately creates the culture of this museum.
We should protect it.
At the end of the ramp is a micro cleaning factory that cleans the river. The wall filters bacteria and heavy metals to make the river clean again.
Clarendon’s Future
Visitors can stand on the micro cleaning factory. to watch the cleaning in action. The factory is supported by concrete columns in the middle, while its four walls filter the river water that passes through.
The eddy pattern of the floor was made of glass, allowing visitors to view the interior of the micro factory.
The corners of the factory offsets inwards, and was covered by two vertical glass sheets. The glass sheets extend over and was bolted to the slab. This hides the edges, creating an invincible box illusion, allowing the visitors to view the interior of the walls.
The River Cleaning Micro factory
We can see traces of time in materials. The wearing off of the paint, the weathering of the wood. Which is why metal such as copper and iron are used in the intervention as a new material. Because they too, age gracefully.
Over time, they oxidize, leaving another period in the history of this building.
Does time ever stop? But we certainly can relive in them, continuously in the present.
Time Eddies by Pei Kai Tan