Memory Bank

Functionality and emotional engagement balance the work of architects Kennedy Nolan.

- Karen Mccartney

“WE ARE VERY INTERESTED in exploring how buildings age, how they make you feel and how we can intensify the engagement of memory,” says Patrick Kennedy of Melbourne architecture practice Kennedy Nolan. And this notion of creating a memorable experience is echoed by his business partner of 16 years, Rachel Nolan. “It is often about contrasts,” she says. “For example, if you move through a very low, dark space into a high and bright one you tend to remember it.” Ditto the journey through a house where everything isn’t revealed at once but rather unfurls in layers as shifting perspectives deliver the unexpected. “Our solution is never a box grafted onto an existing building,” says Nolan.

While older buildings retain an embedded memory, such as a brick ‘English-style’ arts and crafts house in Kew which featured in