This project called for the provision of a two storey temporary hospitality pavilion for the Birdcage enclosure at the Melbourne Cup Spring racing carnival for the years 2006 & 2007. In attune with the stated ideals of the Lexus Car Company we established the agreed brief to provide a facility of unsurpassed comfort, amenity and architectural quality. We had also to produce an outcome within five months and with a marquee type budget. Immediate thoughts were for an inflatable structure that was instant, insulated, iconic and speaking of clean air and lofty ideals. This quickly became too costly, too long, too thick and too opaque. To meet ambition, budget and time constraints inventive necessities took hold to achieve the anticipated result. The final solution was to customise a mature light weight aluminium structure technology to meet our two storey cubic form and designated floor voids which could then be cut down and re-used as standard items in the hire industry. The structure was able to accommodate an inflatable PVC roof plane that included a central clear section to the sky and accept with customised bracket fixings a multi-celled polycarbonate walling system of mostly translucent, opaque, clear and solar reflective grey panels providing a suitably hybrid composition of technologies. The “fit-out” as well was detailed to allow for easy relocatability without compromise to the sense of visual & experiential quality which embraced and extended technical detail and included leather stair handrails, stretched reflective ceilings, and mirrored skirting and void

sections. From a context of themed marquees and decorated tents we aspired to a far more relevant and accountable, performance based enclosure that was to set higher standards with regard to comfort, amenity & performance. A site analysis as for permanent structures was done to establish all relevant design criteria from corporate branding exposure, orientation to race track views in general provision of ground level standing function and first level seated function and external deck comprising overall 300 sq.m. The idea was to present a dynamic enclosure of crystalline and cinematographic qualities that celebrated technology and the spirit of the occasion. An environment that was insulated, ventilated and inspiring supporting an atmosphere of transparency, reflection and interaction. The space was designed with focal core in the form of a void providing air-flow and visual connection between the levels and in which featured a suspended floral chandelier. Along with the hybrid of technologies came an inventive hybrid of contracts and payment deals that made the project meet budget and present the finished product on course within five months from agreement to Derby day. This became a process of design by imaginative economics, a design of logistical procedure and immediacy that expanded the role of architect to find a way to make it happen but without compromise to the initial concept and in understanding that for the four days of the Cup carnival its all about the people; they become the design, they make up the space, they are the colour and the theatre.