Architecture is traditionally described through the lens of form and space. But architecture also occupies time. In this instance, not old or new, or the clock-time so conveniently measured by our phones, but by the liminal space of collective memory and potential futures. This ensures the pursuit of ‘newness’ in architecture is as dangerous as Homer’s attraction to the alluring song of the Sirens.

So, how do you make something Brand New?

The exhibition explores this proposition through a series of six NH projects, recently completed and in mid-flight. Most notably the redevelopment of the Queen Victoria Market and Arts Centre Melbourne. Both endeavours engage the challenges of respecting Naarm’s ecologies, geographies and multiple histories whilst foregrounding each project’s onward journey.

Architecture is a slow art form with long gestation periods followed by the chaotic act of designing and making. When created at the scale of public and city architecture, it involves respect for Country, an array of collaborators, a network of disciplines and the demands of multiple decision-makers.

The exhibition reveals how the NH Studio has developed a working method using tactics, strategy and tools to deal with large-scale legacy projects. Where ideas are located between formative concept drawings and the rebounding pragmatics inherent in a project’s construction. In this nonlinear process, knowledge can be generated simultaneously at different junctions of a problem. Design can therefore equally occur within the pragmatics of a construction program as in the theoretical realm of applied research.

To quote the title of a recent exhibition by American artist Cy Twombly, it is the process of ‘Making Past Present’.