Architect Massimiliano Fuksas's hands ripple like a wave as he gestures over the sleek, low roof of the model he hopes will soon become Canberra's next major iconic building.
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"This is for Australia. This landscape, the waterfront, it's trying to fit with what many people did here before, but ultimately my final client here will be the human beings who will use it," he said on Monday as he unveiled the reference design for Canberra's future new convention centre, known as the Australia Forum.
Fuksas, a renowned Italian architect whose designs adorne airports, universities and major commercial buildings across Europe and Asia, gave a public briefing on the spaceship-like design along with local consortium partners Guida Moseley Brown.
The design aims to echo the reflections of the lake, and Fuksas said he had read extensively about Australia, its people and its landscape to try and better understand the architectural language required of the building, and he had tried to ensure the design would work in harmony with the original Burley Griffin design for the city.
"It's an honour to build here in Canberra. What I like is that this building has areas for dialogue, meetings, relationships. It is for people to communicate, and this architecture should bring a sense of peace to the people who use it," he said.
The building, estimated to cost at least $500m and to sit alongside City Hill in Civic, is proposed as a replacement for Canberra's aging existing convention centre. The ACT Government recently allocated $8 million over the forward budget cycle for work towards the project, although funding remains a sticking point. Canberra Business Chamber ceo Robyn Hendry said with a site now selected, a design in place and a business case likely to be released in the next month or two, the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.
"I recently spoke to the Prime Minister about the project and he was very interested, his view was that infrastructure that gave a future return over the long term represents sound investment. We are a lot further towards seeing this realised than we were 12 months ago," Ms Hendry said.
The most likely funding model will be some mix of public and private investment involving both the Commonwealth and the ACT Governments, and Ms Hendry said when the business case was released it would show that the investment would bring significant returns to the city.
"We know that this will be an iconic building, it will be a catalyst for the rest of the city and it will bring people and vibrancy to the area that is a key focus of the ACT government's city to the lake design," she said.
