Warm Light Interaction – The Gallery Shop at the Art Gallery of NSW’s Sydney Modern Building by Akin Atelier
Akin Atelier has redefined the parameters of the retail space with an immersive, first-of-its-kind installation created in collaboration with multi-disciplinary designer Hayden Cox. The unique result is The Gallery Shop at the Art Gallery of NSW’s Sydney Modern Building. The shop sits within the expansive, mostly glass Entrance Pavilion of Sydney Modern that enables sweeping views of nearby Woolloomooloo, Potts Point, Central Sydney and the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain.
Akin Atelier has punctuated the openness of the pavilion by cocooning the retail space within itself. A large-scale vertical structure made of translucent resin curves through the
space, both encasing the entirety of the store as its external boundary and also becoming the interior display mechanism with moulded resin shelves lining the walls of the store.
The creation of this incredibly original structure drew on the expertise of Hayden Cox – renowned for his performance surfboard brand, Haydenshapes. The collaboration spanned over two years, encompassing research, experimentation and design development to arrive at the store’s new material form.
The installation is made up of 29 resin modules, each weighing between 300 and 500 kilograms. Production of the project involved 12 tonnes of hand-poured bio-resin, which was meticulously finished with 12 grit levels of hand-sanding and seven hand polishing stages.
The shape and scale of the shop within the Entrance Pavilion amplify the serene effect of the materials that make up the store. The resin of the installation is realised in a soft orange, its tonal intensity shifting depending on the angle of the curved wall and the amount of light streaming in.
The quality of light is one of the most focused-upon elements of the Sydney Modern project, in that so many materials are present for the light to engage with. It passes through the sheer curtains that line the immense glass walls, filling the open space and flooding the floors of the pavilion, before softly filtering through the resin walls of The Gallery Shop. Finally, light and the shapes and shadows of nearby objects are reflected from the custom stainless steel display tables that inhabit the store’s interior. The effect of all this is like a dusty, dreamy, sci-fi sunset. What better place to house the myriad tomes and tokens of artistic expression than this?
The resin of the installation is realised in a soft orange, its tonal intensity shifting depending on the angle of the curved wall and the amount of light streaming in.
The outcome of the committed partnership and complex technical work is a large-scale application of bio-resin that gently, beautifully suggests we can garner more from our architectural spaces than what we have come to expect. The Gallery Shop offers a new way to perceive, to walk through and to be with space, shape, colour and light.
