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Port Arthur Jetty Shelter, Tasmania: Constructed of Tasmanian timbers, the shelter form evokes a traditional boatshed and provides a place for pause, enabling orientation and contemplation of the historic setting. Photo by Peter Whyte.
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Port Arthur Jetty Shelter, Tasmania: The sympathetic contemporary insertion, constructed of Tasmanian timbers, is consistent with best practice conservation principles in a World heritage Australian Convict Site. Photo by Peter Whyte.
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Port Arthur Jetty Shelter, Tasmania: Sliding Tasmanian timber screens enable their flexible configuration to open the amenity to its historic context or close it down responsive to weather conditions. Photo by Peter Whyte.
Evocative of a traditional boatshed, the Jetty Shelter at Mason Cove, Port Arthur Historic Site, is an unassuming contemporary “threshold” building – a link and transitionary space between land and sea, past and present, for visitors arriving by ferry. The shelter, constructed of Tasmanian timbers, provides a place for pause, enabling orientation and contemplation of the historic setting to be explored on arrival, and reflection on the experience and its revelations whilst awaiting departure. Its functional purpose as a public amenity is to manage safe access by travellers to and from the ferry, and to ensure them a measure of comfort – shelter from the elements and the provision of public conveniences.
The sympathetic design is consistent with best practice conservation principles in a World Heritage Australian Convict Site.