Standing on the highway at the entrance to Mansfield, the High Country Visitor Information Centre is both a resource and a signifier: the gateway to the winter snow and summer bush activities of the High Country.
This is a significant project for the area. The building encourages long-distance visitors to stop for its toilets; it encourages them to linger in the area by providing tourist information; it enables a deeper understanding of the culture and history of the region with its interpretive displays; it activates the historic site by linking to the Local History Society in the old railway station and a proposed gallery in the historic train shed. The building involved local suppliers during construction, and has since become a focus for community pride, used for functions and providing local employment in the booking centre.
To extend the possibilities of a very low budget the building itself became part of the interpretation of High Country themes through sympathetically combined materials, colours, textures and imagery, supporting the displays and keying the building into its site and the region.
The building is initially glimpsed from the Maroondah Highway through a row of ancient River Red Gums. The long, high form of the interpretive galleries becomes a foil for these twisted trees: a long curve of rammed earth surmounted by a rippling corrugated metal wall, catching the light and changing subtly in appearance as it is passed. Locally-grown plantation southern blue gum poles, selected in the field at the beginning of the project and cut and cured during the design process, form a sturdy structure stepping around the infill rammed earth walls, beneath the metal cladding. Simple but effective lighting ensures that the building has maximum impact even during the winter evenings when many visitors will be travelling towards the snowfields.
At the building’s entrance, in harmony with the rugged High Country materials of earth, stone and corrugated iron, and adjacent to a corrugated tank emphasising the importance of water, the timber columns become a forest of free-standing poles in a walk-through courtyard, each decorated to demonstrate aspects of the environment, history and industry of the area. They include those carved and painted by the local Koorie community, a Ned Kelly pole gazing towards one covered in gold representing the gold rush, a snowboard-covered pole and the talking pole, whispering locals’ memories.
Internally the floor is made from locally-grown plantation Vic Ash, and massive recycled red gum in the form of a gold mine digging entrance marks the entry to the interpretive exhibition area. The information counter is a slab of Dense Elm reclaimed from the street trees grown in Maldon and the advertising pamphlet holders are Red Gum and Vic Ash sympathetically combined with copper details. A stone fireplace gives a warm focus to the entry area during winter and can be decorated with flowers or autumn leaves for the rest of the year, bringing the changing seasons into the heart of the building.
Mansfield, Victoria2006
Mansfield Shire (VicGov)