ACMI is the largest museum in the world focusing on screen culture and the moving image. The renewal of the 2002 museum space by BKK Architects and Second Story represents a quantum leap forward for this museum typology, but also for all types of experience design and digital culture; it questions the very nature of the physical museum itself. The project is unlike traditional museums that house physical artefacts. Instead, it is a museum that celebrates the physically intangible, virtual and ephemeral culture of the moving image, the consumers of which play an active role in its continual reproduction, they are watchers, players and makers. One of the central drivers of this new museum is to extend its boundaries beyond its physical structure at Federation Square, out into the city and into people’s homes, revolutionising the way we understand exhibitions and how we can (re)continue to interact with them long after we’ve left.
The original ACMI museum never envisaged the method of its evolution, nor did it anticipate the success of the institution. A major issue was the disconnected nature of the spaces and lack of legibility within ACMI, combined with an absence of identity and a clear point of entry. Visitors often went to one component of ACMI but not others.
The design process was genuinely collaborative; BKK worked hand-in-hand with Razorfish and many other design disciplines, as well as ACMI’s Indigenous curatorial team, to develop the strategic design framework from Day 1. The result is a seamless museum space that is non-static and traverses the traditional, is a major work. A number of design moves were undertaken to achieve this: n Bring the museum out into the city through the reinstatement and reinforcement of the original (internal) laneway design. n Disconnected spaces were united and legibility improved through, first, the carving out of the interior, and then the major insertion of the timber Living Stair. n Create a new identity for ACMI and make it distinct from Fed Square, while respecting the original Heritage architecture. n Through amplification of the lightwell, the central spine was strengthened; it becomes a beacon at night and also allows light (the fundamental component of the moving image) to fill and animate the space. n Spaces, such as the Living Stair and Urban Lounge, were created to pause, relax, hang out – a ‘third space’ for the city and museum. n The process was as much subtractive as additive – removing layers or repositioning elements of redundant space to reveal and amplify the best qualities of the original design. n Spaces were created to support the doubling of student numbers across ACMI’s vital and popular teaching programs.
