Description

Working with Aspect Studios, BVN designed a set of distinctive gardens arranged as a connected suite of intimate and public spaces bound by ‘quiet’ buildings with transparent portals that open directly to the garden setting. This series of garden vistas and rooms are in turn linked to the existing lake, now reimagined as the ‘heart’ of a broader network that will include future stages.

The widest possible range of reflective and celebratory events, are supported through buildings that include chapels, function rooms, café, florist and service centre. A particularly characteristic part is the pedestrian commemoration bridge which connects the central gardens to the curvilinear outdoor chapel which opens directly to the lake.

Materials and detail throughout the complex are identifiably Australian, there are distinctive native plants combined with rusted steel landscape walls, red earth paths and berms, reflective water pools, and rammed earth walls. The eucalypt timber joinery, interior and exterior colours extend the repertoire of the buildings being ‘reverential’ backgrounds to the colour and energy of the gardens.

At the core of the scheme is BVN’s commitment to the capacity of architecture and place making to evoke and suggest potent experiences. Buildings and spaces are designed to host occasions where what is accepted, intrinsic and essential about life can be experienced with heightened awareness.

Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust’s ambition for Bunurong Memorial Park to be used as a destination for celebrations of all kinds and for all people is already being realised with a weddings being organised alongside funerals.

BVN provided full services from briefing through to contract administration.