A silver gelatin dry plate glass negative in landscape format.

Country Always

Caring for Country

A Corner of the Empire

The Garden Palace

Sepia photograph of the Technological Museum and a cow in the foreground

The Holding Pen

The Agricultural Hall

Sepia photograph of the Technological College and Museum in Broken Hill

Regional Networks

Across New South Wales

A Museum of Doing

Technological Museum

Colour photograph of red corrugated iron building from a high vantage point

Transforming the Tramsheds

Powerhouse Stage 1 and the Harwood Building

A Symbol in Time

Sydney Observatory

Powerhouse Museum, Stage 2 exterior from high angle, city skyline in background

Ongoing Transformations

Powerhouse Ultimo

Blurred image from film with museum object number

Applied Arts and Sciences

Defining the terms in the 21st century

Powerhouse Renewal

Two people standing next to a cow in a field of cows.

Powerhouse Food: Producers

Across Western Sydney24 Aug 2024 — 25 Jul 2025

We Rise

Blak Powerhouse

A tall rocket with a long trail of burning fuel lifts off from a launchpad at Cape Canaveral.

Powerhouse-1 Mission Launch to the ISS

An initiative of the Powerhouse: Future Space program

Photofields

Across Sydney6—7 Dec
Shadows cast by the Powerhouse Parramatta exoskeleton on concrete

Exoskeleton

Powerhouse Parramatta

A woman stands on stage in front of a large audience. She has her left hand raised in the air and a microphone in her right hand. The audience are holding their phones up recording the woman.

Blak Powerhouse 2023

Powerhouse x We Are Warriors

Slider thumb2025
Stories

Exoskeleton

Powerhouse Parramatta
Interview with Hiroko Kusunoki, Nicolas Moreau, Steven Toia, Kengo Takamatsu and Jun Sato.
Shadows cast by the Powerhouse Parramatta exoskeleton on concrete

Powerhouse Parramatta is designed so that the superstructure is a celebrated architectural feature that is used to articulate the building facades. The buildings are designed with three scales of steel lattices as an exoskeleton to the buildings that provide column free large volume spaces.

Moreau Kusunoki’s concept envisaged each element of the exoskeleton to have a unifying pattern that could be observed both up close and when viewing the building from afar. These sketches made in June 2020 show the working process of Arup Senior Structural Engineer Kengo Takamatsu as he develops the exoskeleton pattern and geometry that was designed by Moreau Kusunoki. Takamatsu’s drawings illustrate how tension and compression are manipulated with traditional truss components such as chords and nodes while enablingthe X, V and N patterns in the steel at both a large and small scale, as developed by Moreau Kusunoki.

Architecture is all about the relation with the site. The nature of the site environment is always the first thing that feeds the design and helps us to take directions. So architecture and nature is all one thing.
Nicolas Moreau, Moreau Kusunoki (Lead Designer)

In their competition scheme, Moreau Kusunoki (Lead Designer) and Genton (Local Architect) conceived Powerhouse Parramatta as a building with many functions and limitless potential. Their concept for the exoskeleton enabled the built form to tread lightly on the site, creating a porous ground plane that opens up the architecture as a gateway between the city and the river.

The exoskeleton lattice patterns directly express the building’s structural logic, revealing its functionality, rationality and lightness; enabling column free exhibition spaces to support dynamic and flexible programming.
Kengo Takamatsu, Senior Structural Engineer, Arup Australia

The Film

Powerhouse Parramatta Exoskeleton Prototype

On Monday 31 October 2022, Moreau Kusunoki (Lead Designer) and Genton (Local Architect), a representative of the Design Integrity Panel and the project team reviewed the prototype of Powerhouse Parramatta’s exterior structural frame, known as the exoskeleton, as well as the proposed glazed facade.

At approximately 7m high x 4m wide x 5m deep, review of the prototype is a key process to finalise the design development to be incorporated into the completed exoskeleton and the façade. The design and project teams will continue to test and validate the design solutions associated with steel, concrete and façade interfaces over the next months.

person standing by themselves next to exoskeleton
people gathered outside prototype under a boom mic
person talking under a boom mic surrounded by people
three people wearing black clothes looking towards the camera
We were looking for something that would be iconic for Western Sydney.
Steven Toia, Genton (Local Architect)
Dissolving the structure into lattice transforms the perception of scale of the building. Starting with the first, finest degree of lattice, we create a scale that is human and tangible; contributing to the comfort and attachment of the individual visitor. The second, medium level of lattice, relates more to the scale of the neighbourhood; integrating the building into the urban fabric. Finally, the third, largest degree of lattice solidifies the building as a monumental landmark. This network of lattice enables the building to transcend scales, existing simultaneously in the intimate and the iconic.
Hiroko Kusunoki, Moreau Kusunoki (Lead Designer)

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