Pink Pond

Pink Pond 

Taylor Knights + James Carey

Pink Pond
© Tom Ross

ARCHITECTS
Taylor Knightsartists: James Carey

ARTIST
James Carey

CLIENT
Ngv

YEAR
2021

LOCATION
Melbourne, Australia

CATEGORY
Installations & Structures, Installation, Temporary Installations

Pink Pond
© Tom Ross

Text description provided by architect.

A beautiful architectural installation, replete with a pink pond evocative of Australia’s inland salt lakes, has been revealed as the winner of the NGV’s 2021 Architecture Commission in the Grollo Equiset Garden at NGV International.

Designed by a Melbourne-based team comprising architecture firm Taylor Knights in collaboration with artist James Carey, the installation, entitled pond[er], offers a space for visitors to cool off during the summer months and reflect on their relationship with the environment.

Pink Pond
© Tom Ross
Pink Pond
© Tom Ross

Referencing Sir Roy Grounds’s open-air courtyards in the original design of NGV International, this architecture and landscape installation comprises two key design elements: a body of indigenous plants and a body of water.

The body of water is coloured pink, making direct reference to the many inland salt lakes in Victoria and highlighting the scarcity, importance and political implications of water as a natural resource.

Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell
Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell

The installation also includes beds of Victorian wildflowers, designed in association with Ben Scott Garden Design, that bloom at different times throughout the installation seeks to highlight the beauty, precariousness and temporality of our natural ecology.

Envisioned as a space that becomes part the NGV garden rather than a separate architectural object, pond[er] invites audiences to move through a series of interconnected walkways and accessible platforms.

Pink Pond
© Tom Ross
Pink Pond
© Tom Ross
Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell

Visitors can immerse themselves within and explore the spaces of flora and water and can even step down and wade through the pink pond.

In response to the 2021 competition brief, the materials that have been selected for the project are locally sourced and manufactured, and, wherever possible, are intended to be distributed and used again by various Landcare, Indigenous and community groups upon deinstallation, including the Willam Warrain Aboriginal Association.

Each year, the annual commission is selected via a two-stage national competition, in which architects or multi- disciplinary teams are invited to submit a design for an engaging temporary structure or installation to activate the NGV’s Grollo Equiset Garden, one of Melbourne’s great civic and cultural spaces.

Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell
Pink Pond
© Tom Ross


Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell
Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell
Pink Pond
Courtesy of Taylor Knights and James Carey at NGV
Pink Pond
Courtesy of Taylor Knights and James Carey at NGV
Pink Pond
Courtesy of Taylor Knights and James Carey at NGV
Pink Pond
Pink Pond
Courtesy of Taylor Knights and James Carey at NGV
Pink Pond
Courtesy of Taylor Knights and James Carey at NGV


Pink Pond
© Tom Ross
Pink Pond
© Tom Ross
Pink Pond
© Tom Ross
Pink Pond
© Tom Ross
Pink Pond
© Tom Ross
Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell


Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell
Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell
Pink Pond
© Derek Swalwell