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Architects: CA Architects, Cox Architecture
- Year: 2018
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Photographs:Andrew Watson
Text description provided by the architects. The Cairns Performing Arts Centre and associated Parklands is the key new Civic offering for the culturally rich city of Cairns in North Queensland. The design responds to the city’s dramatic Tropical setting.
The building is part of a Cultural Precinct with Munro Martin Parklands which combined delivers a main Proscenium Arch theatre of 950 seats, a 400 seat Flexible Studio, and an external Performance Amphitheatre with a capacity for 3,000. The project reflects a commitment to both residents and the broader region with links to the Torres Strait and the Islands of the Pacific Rim.
Integrated indigenous Art was commissioned from distant Erub Island in the Torres Strait with the unique recycling of found nylon fishing nets. Performance is integral to indigenous cultures in North Queensland and CPAC provides a support network for emerging talent, vocations in drama, and for touring performances.
The building is a form in the round’ with sculptural massing that accommodates a tall fly tower within a cohesive form. The tropical response is distilled in the foyer’s solar screen that faces northwest to the adjacent Parklands. Landscape colours and the traditions of weaving contribute to the complexity of a screen that changes expression through night and day providing diffuse light to the foyer.
The arrangement of the bar to work both internally and externally responds to both the setting and a relaxed Cairns lifestyle. Interiors further explore a rainforest sensibility with a dramatic timber battened space that achieves acoustic tasks and contributes to the drama of the performance.
