John Wardle Architects selected as the winner of the Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens visitor center competition

John Wardle Architects (JWA) design has been selected as the winner of the Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens visitor center competition. Meant to showcase native or endemic to Australia species, the center will be located in the regional NSW town of Bowral and constructed out of materials reflecting the region’s natural resources, such as sandstone, basalt rock and trachyte.

According to the architects, "The design nestles into the stone wall to spatially complete the Parterre garden, integrating a sequence of internal and external spaces that are intended to heighten a sense of anticipation, akin to entering a secret garden.

Conceptually, the building engages with the long lineage of garden structures and evokes the formal and material characteristics of a conservatory nestled within the garden wall. As a light-weight structure set above an earthy, brick base the expression of materials in the building is both poetic and rooted in the local history of Bowral. The design plays with varying levels of transparency alluding to the distinctive lightness typically associated with greenhouses, orangeries and conservatories."

Subject to funding, construction of the center will begin in 2018/19. John Wardle Architects will work closely with SHBG’s renowned landscape architects, Taylor Cullity Lethlean.