Ormiston Activity Centre
Public facilities in parks often seem less shelters than bunkers. In contrast to that, Ormiston Activity Centre is conspicuously welcoming. Archoffice’s technicolour dreamcoated is a beacon in the wilderness of the 94 hectare Barry Curtis Park announcing loud and proud to the skate crew that this is home.
It is comprised of four discrete volumes – stair tower, meeting room, toilets and viewing platform. This nifty little box dressed up in a multi-coloured piupiu takes its inspiration from kiddie building blocks. Steel verticals of varying thickness like the lines of a bar code are coated in three pure colours, with secondary and tertiary colours gatecrashing the party in a reference to the range of hues in digital age graphics. While there are breakpoints in the bar (and they are less intense around the window openings) all that colourful interference disguises the function of providing a protective shield against vandalism and graffiti. The roof over the toilet block doubles as a platform for anxious caregivers to unobtrusively keep an eye on reckless offspring skating below.
