HOTA (Home of the Arts) is a mammoth masterplan for a landscape and cultural precinct to be built over 15 years. It occupies 17 hectares at Evandale.
Our overall masterplan includes the HOTA Outdoor Stage (completed 2017), HOTA Bridge (2020), the HOTA Gallery (2021), the Lyric Theatre (proposed), the central Great Terrace, a sub-tropical garden, lakes and bridges, and a water-play area.
The site, on the beautiful Nerang River, has ageing cultural infrastructure and redundant commercial buildings needing demolition. Asphalt carparks dominate. Our masterplan converts it from a governmental precinct to an arts and recreation one.
Instead of a city grid, the precinct will be structured and unified by the dynamic, organic cellular structure of the Voronoi, nature’s most robust but delicate shape. A gelato-coloured diaphanous Voronoi web will be overlaid on the site to form towers, sculptures, lawn tiles, pools, paths, galleries, seats, cladding, umbrellas, display cases, roofs and even sections of a wharf.
A Voronoi diagram is a network of cells that occurs naturally in many plants and animals—even honeycombs and bubbles. We have used it on other projects including the Wintergarden and the Melbourne Recital Centre. Voronoi shapes in nature adapt and shift in response to external change—this is a perfect structure for a cultural precinct that reflects the furious, youthful energy of Australia’s sixth biggest city.
Evandale Lake and Surfers Paradise
In 2013, the City of Gold Coast launched an international design competition to masterplan a new cultural precinct at Evandale. Seventy-five firms entered and ARM, with German landscape architects TOPOTEK1, was one of three shortlisted teams invited to further develop a concept.
We have replaced the conventional landscape plan with an artscape one generated by Voronoi cells. We worked with TOPOTEK1 to plan a curated botanical and artistic landscape. It comprises 18 distinct sites including the Garden of the First Australians, the landscape collections (which will showcase edible indigenous plants and more recent crops such as sugar cane and pineapples), an art walk and a new inland beach.
Many things will be free of charge, including basketball courts the skate park, outdoor table tennis, water play features, a treetop walk, a hanging playground, public art installations and a landscaped yoga and meditation zone.
The artscape interprets culture in the broadest, most inclusive way. It is egalitarian and unashamedly different from cultural centres in other major cities.
In a major environmentally sustainable design move, our plan replaces carparks with parks, thus increasing public open space. Alternative parking on the site will be either multi-level or underground.
Evandale Lake will be divided into play zones but retain space for swimming the 120-metre laps.
HOTA Outdoor Stage.
Stage 1, the HOTA Outdoor Stage, was completed in November 2017. It’s a versatile double-sided venue: a black-box theatre with a riverside entrance and a back wall that folds away completely, opening the box out onto an amphitheatre with seating and lawn space for 5,000 people.
The whole venue is nestled underneath a landscaped mound. There is a commercial kitchen to cater for public and private functions, plus dressing rooms and backstage amenities. The venue is equipped with the latest digital technologies.
The second completed stage is the 130-metre green bridge (which is blue), designed and delivered by ARM, Archipelago and CUSP. It’s for pedestrians and bikes and spans the Gold Coast’s Nerang River, connecting HOTA to Surfers Paradise via Chevron Island.
The landing at the HOTA end curves out over Evandale Lake. It’s wrapped with a striking three-dimensional façade—an artwork called 40 Million Mornings, created by artists Warren Langley and Jess Austin and curated by our partners at Archipelago.
The folded form and golden hue represent the sun on the Nerang River over the past 40 million mornings, using the themes of water and open hands to illustrate the notion of past, present and future.
40 Million Mornings, created by artists Warren Langley and Jess Austin, lights up over Evandale Lake after dark [image courtesy of the City of Gold Coast].
Completed in 2021, the HOTA Gallery is one of the largest regional galleries in Australia, and houses the City of Gold Coast’s extensive collection of art and cultural artefacts plus local and international temporary and touring exhibitions.
We collaborated with exhibition designers Thylacine to ensure the architecture and exhibition spaces were closely integrated.
Stage 2, the HOTA Gallery, was completed in 2021.