For the 2023 NGV Architecture Commission, Studiobird/SIMONA present Simply Irresistible, a temporary pavilion, existing as a rotating portal, a signature retreat space centering an active and accessible user experience to the NGV Grollo Equiset Garden. More than what space looks like, Simply Irresistible asked: ‘What does space feel like?’.

The project is a twist on the bandstand, where one becomes a performer in their own experience of the NGV. It’s a tactile space of somatic and personal reflection; encouraging performance to all who interact with the pavilion and its adjacent programs. Beyond the non-place, the audience contemplates its relationship as performers in our own worlds, a joyous cinematic space of wonderment in its performative dialogue with the NGV Garden.

Simply Irresistible becomes a new personality with its rotating drum and amphitheatre activated in potentiality with the garden and the Gallery’s ongoing public programs. Underneath the drum's prismatic aperture is a circular stage and daybeds composed of concentric and soft astroturf ground planes in Robert Palmer orange, pink, and purple. Outdoor speakers are integrated into the daybeds headrests, playing a purpose-designed musical score by SIMONA.

The rotating drum acts as a wind generator to generate energy powering a motor on days when wind conditions are calm, along with its LED lighting and audio components.

Through queer and trans spatial methodologies, Studiobird/SIMONA look to dreams of utopia, believing in their capacity for realisation. Simply Irresistible looks to intergenerational playfulness and curiosity. It provides an interior and integrated outdoor space that interacts with its context through performance and observation.  

In collaboration with landscape architect Marti Fooks, our landscape strategy integrates the pavilion’s conceptual and geometric ideas into the existing NGV Garden and creates a memorable biodiverse experience. A circular garden bed will engulf Henry Moore’s Draped Seated Women (1958). Planting extends upon previous iterations of NGV Architecture Commissions as a mix of native and indigenous species. They are selected to showcase wonderful and diverse colours, shapes and forms of Australian natives.

This hyper-display of flowers promotes their potential for use within urban environments for biodiversity and habitat, particularly for native bees. The layout of plants reinforces the geometric garden beds by subtly alternating between colours. Billy buttons and tall kangaroo paws in various colours from blue, pink to yellow will stand tall and move with the winds alongside the Drum. Narrow paths weave through the garden beds inviting people to interact with the flowers by intimately walking through the gardens through touch and smell.

In collaboration with structural engineer Peter Felicetti and artisan steel fabricator Ian Webb (Webb Welding), the main structural components of the pavilion will be galvanised steel for both its ease of local & off-site fabrication and to achieve the required spans & kit of parts attributes. To support the proposed feature rotating drum, a foundation of four ballast cylinders (filled with rubble on-site) will create a solid base that does not require excavation. Four rolled steel ‘tracks’ composed of top, bottom, and integrated caster wheels (the bearings) are craned individually and mechanically fixed to the foundations to create a continuous ring.

Forty-two faceted and interlocking ‘fins’ form the feature drum of Simply Irresistible. Working with Oasis Tension Structures, experts in tensile structures, each fin comprises two iridescently coloured stretched sail shades supported with top, middle and bottom tubular extrusions and discreet fixings. These extrusions are capped in trailer reflectors for a shimmering effect. Each lightweight fin is lifted into place and fixed to its neighbour with cables to form a continuous self-supporting tensegrity ring. 

The gentle rotation of the drum will be achieved kinetically as a wind turbine. On calm days, movement will be achieved using a proprietary gate motor discretely located above one of the foundation cylinders adjacent to the steel track. The motor will be powered via surplus energy stored in a battery. The motor and the rotating drum can be switched on and off with remote control depending on the time of day and prevailing weather conditions.

A fringe of zinc-plated ‘single jack’ metal chains create a soft circular screen for the pavilion. Chains are fixed to a tubular steel element at the top and a partially submerged bottom rail. A small section near the entry will be unfixed to allow people to pass through or open for special events.