Located in Hobart, Tasmania, The Hedberg vision is to present a culturally significant performing and creative arts destination that galvanizes the creative heart of Hobart and fuels Tasmania’s cultural offering in a global and contemporary context.
The Hedberg is funded through a unique partnership between the University of Tasmania, the Australian and Tasmanian Governments, and the Theatre Royal, Australia’s oldest and continuously operating theatre.
In 2013, Hobart-based LIMINAL Architecture, with Singapore-based WOHA, was awarded the internationally competitive bid to deliver this culturally significant building.
The result is a cultural place of ceremony, merging ancient traditions with modern innovations.
The project includes:
- professional music and performance hubs
- world-class performance venues
- a new home for the Conservatorium of Music
- creative workshop laboratories
- integration of the two-storey heritage-listed Hedberg Garage
- universal access to all levels of the historic Theatre Royal for the first time
- cutting-edge technologies facilitating local and global exchange
The Hedberg could not have happened anywhere else or on any other site.
The building is informed by its cultural and community contexts.
The design encapsulates a people-focused intimacy, relevancy, and scale.
It celebrates the role the built environment plays in deepening an understanding of place.
That understanding inspires cultural and creative immersion for its users, practitioners, performers, educators, producers, musicians, students, visitors, and patrons.
It presents a festival in a building.
The Hedberg tells stories of the past, overlaid with aspirations for the future.
The design strategy evokes a sense of the theatrical activities inside.
The external expression is influenced by the minimalist and dancing forms in contemporary music notation.
The cladding suggests a shimmering theatrical curtain being pulled open to reveal the warmth within.
The exterior sparkle takes its cue from the opalescence of Tasmanian abalone shells, traditionally used to carry fire, acknowledging the significance of fire in cultural exchange and the role it continues to play as the original natural ‘theatre’ for storytelling.
The urban compositional strategies balance the scale of the new building with the heritage buildings by visually separating them, using glass lobby spaces as connections between the inward-looking performance spaces.
“Even though its volumetric requirements are far greater than those of adjacent heritage buildings, the project’s design is contextual and well mannered. It appreciates and exposes elements that define the heritage significance of the site while satisfying contemporary requirements,” said Elvio Brianese, LIMINAL Architecture co-founding Director.
“As part of the heritage strategy, we used materials that are modern but harmonize with the masonry, sandstone, and brick of the historical buildings. We wanted The Hedberg to feel more like a cluster of buildings on the city block, than a huge performing arts building that overwhelms the modest-scale heritage structures,” says Richard Hassell, co-founding director of WOHA.
In the site’s evolution, The Hedberg adds a contemporary layer that ensures the heritage buildings that abut and exist on the site, experience longevity through adaptive reuse.
The heritage strategy interweaves interpretive layers into the built fabric as salvaged materials and archaeological fragments found onsite are reused or presented in panels to reflect stories within stories.
This conservation, reuse, interpretation, and revelation achieve sustainability.
“The ‘fabric’ of the building externally and internally provides interpretative layers of the past re-presented through a contemporary lens heightening the story-telling potential of the building,” said Peta Heffernan, LIMINAL Architecture co-founding Director.
In the professional performing arts context, its progressiveness is also represented by acoustic versatility.
The design incorporates a full range of acoustic variables from natural and traditional methods such as absorptive moveable banners, curtains, diffusive panels, and reflectors to electronic acoustic enhancement options that can change and be activated without changing the visual appearance of the space.
This enables the performance to be free of distraction, preserving the mystique of theatre, without the visual ‘cue’ that can dilute the immersive potential as it shifts from a singular musician to a rock band.
The electronic acoustic enhancement system can also make the 350-seat Ian Potter Recital Hall ‘sound’ like an auditorium that can seat 700 plus people.
This versatility in an intimate venue allows for a full spectrum of music genres that typically would not be able to be accommodated.
Maximum impact and opportunity are created with minimal means as for the cost of a small auditorium, the acoustic experience can be equivalent to the grandest auditorium in the world.
The convivially collaborative relationship between LIMINAL Architecture and WOHA was a first and allowed design concepts to push past boundaries of what would have previously or individually been possible.
The result is a precinct that is deeply aware of its cultural and community context together with an understanding of its unique and well-deserved place on the global stage.
Client Feedback
Vice Chancellor, University of Tasmania, Professor Rufus Black said:
Can I offer our deep thanks to LIMINAL Studio, our Hobart-based architects, who – in the spirit of collaboration – invited Singapore-based WOHA to work with them on this project, and which resulted in this remarkable finely textured and storied building?
They themselves are poets of space who in many ways have created an architectural instrument to be played by the performers here and like a great instrument the performance will be all the finer because of the quality of the stage upon which it is performed.
Project Details
Completion Date – 2021
Project Team
Architecture and Interior Design
LIMINAL Architecture
LIMINAL Architecture is internationally awarded and operates as one of the interdisciplinary identities under the LIMINAL Studio banner which also includes LIMINAL Spaces, Objects, and Ideation, known for its collaborative and community-engaging process.
WOHA
WOHA focuses on researching and innovating integrated architectural and urban solutions to tackle the problems of the 21st century such as climate change, population growth and rapidly increasing urbanisation.
Landscape Architecture
Inspiring Place
Inspiring Place creates experiences that respect and reveal the essence of a place: whether it is in the city, the wilderness, or somewhere in between.
Building Surveyor
Pitt and Sherry
With over 20 years of experience, pitt&sherry Building Surveying is the largest building surveying company in Tasmania.
www.pittsherrybuildingsurveying.com.au
Archaeology
Austral Archaeology
Austral Archaeology is one of Australia’s oldest archaeological and heritage consulting firms.
Civil, Structural, and Services Engineering
ARUP
Arup is an independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, architects, consultants, and technical specialists, working across every aspect of today’s built environment.
Gandy and Roberts
Gandy and Roberts specialises in structural, civil, and hydraulic engineering for building projects, working with clients across a broad range of services and sectors.
Planning
IreneInc
IreneInc is an urban planning consultancy offering skills and experience in all facets of Statutory and Strategic Planning, Project Development, and Urban Design.
Quantity Surveyor
Matrix Management Group
Matrix Management Group is a multi-disciplined Project Management and Quantity Surveying company in Tasmania.
Safety in Design
Aware 365
Aware 365 are safety consultants that provide workplace safety systems, safety in design reports, safety expertise, and online learning solutions.
Traffic Engineering
Howarth Fisher
Howarth Fisher & Associates is a focused engineering design company specializing in structural, civil, and traffic engineering.
Urban Design
Leigh Woolley
Leigh has thirty years of professional experience as an architectural and urban design practitioner, author, and educator.
www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/cose-ted/leigh-woolley
Construction
Hansen Yuncken
Hansen Yuncken is an Australian construction company, founded in 1918.
Photography
Natasha Mulhall
Natasha is an award-winning Tasmanian Photographer specialising in architecture, lifestyle, tourism, and landscapes.
Dianna Snape
Dianna Snape is an Australian architectural photographer based in Melbourne.
She specializes in interiors, landscape, and architectural photography.
Patrick Bingham-Hall
Patrick Bingham-Hall is an architectural photographer. He is also an architectural writer and editor and owns Pesaro Publishing, which publishes books on architecture and design.
Photo Gallery
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Design © 2022 LIMINAL Spaces with WOHA. All Rights Reserved.| Images © 2022 Natasha Mulhall, Dianna Snape, Patrick Bingham-Hall. All Rights Reserved.
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