Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot win Adelaide Contemporary International Design Competition

Arts South Australia and competition organisers Malcolm Reading Consultants announced yesterday [5 June 2018] that the team led by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (US) with Woods Bagot (Australia) has won the Adelaide Contemporary International Design Competition.

Adelaide Contemporary Daytime View from the North. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot

The Adelaide Contemporary competition, for a new art space on Adelaide’s North Terrace, has selected the proposal designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot, because reconciled the brief for a dynamic people-friendly new place with a skilfully-organised gallery, while also incorporating a performance lab, a dramatic ‘Super Lobby’, floating top-floor sky galleries and a suspended rooftop garden. The garden, inspired by ‘Minkunthi’, the Kaurna word ‘to relax’, would display the planting of a pre-colonised South Australian landscape, linking the idea of the contemporary to Kaurna ecological and cultural history.

The building was described by the team in their presentation as a charismatic soft beacon on North Terrace that would reflect the sky by day and, at night, glow with galleries – allowing visitors to glimpse the art collection as they passed the building outside formal opening hours and, in this sense, ‘giving the art back to the city’.

The nine-strong international jury, chaired by Michael Lynch AO CBE, found the concept design to be resonant to Adelaide, and its famous festival culture, promising to create spectacle and attract new audiences with dynamic, multipurpose spaces while also displaying a sound understanding of current art practice and offering a flexible but distinctive gallery configuration on a nine-square model.

The decision follows a seven-month global search for an outstanding team to design a new cultural destination on part of the former Royal Adelaide Hospital (oRAH) site. The competition attracted submissions from 107 teams made up of circa 525 individual firms from five continents.

The new gallery and public sculpture park is envisaged as one of the most significant new arts initiatives of 21st-century Australia, providing a national focal point for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and cultures as well as new spaces for major exhibitions, and the opportunity to unlock the hidden treasures of South Australia’s State collections.

The runner-up teams were (in alphabetical order): Adjaye Associates (London, UK) and BVN (Sydney, Australia); BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group (Copenhagen, Denmark) and JPE Design Studio (Adelaide, Australia); David Chipperfield Architects (London, UK) and SJB Architects (Sydney, Australia); HASSELL (Melbourne, Australia) and SO-IL (New York, USA); and Khai Liew (Adelaide, Australia); Office of Ryue Nishizawa (Tokyo, Japan) and Durbach Block Jaggers (Sydney, Australia).

Adelaide Contemporary interior view. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot

Adelaide Contemporary Adelaide Contemporary Daytime View from North Terrace. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot

Adelaide Contemporary Nighttime View from North Terrace. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot

Section. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot

Upper Floor Southern Bay. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot

Upper Level and Rooftop Garden.. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot

Board. Adelaide Contemporary. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Woods Bagot

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More information

Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin. Diller Scofidio + Renfro Studio

Diller Scofidio + Renfro Studio. Founded in 1981, Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) is a design studio whose practice spans the fields of architecture, urban design, installation art, multi-media performance, digital media, and print. With a focus on cultural and civic projects, DS+R’s work addresses the changing role of institutions and the future of cities. The studio is based in New York and is comprised of over 100 architects, designers, artists and researchers, led by four partners--Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin.

DS+R completed two of the largest architecture and planning initiatives in New York City’s recent history: the adaptive reuse of an obsolete, industrial rail infrastructure into the High Line, a 1.5 mile-long public park, and the transformation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ half-century-old campus. The studio is currently engaged in two more projects significant to New York, scheduled to open in 2019: The Shed, the first multi-arts center designed to commission, produce, and present all types of performing arts, visual arts, and popular culture, and the renovation and expansion of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Most recently, the studio was also selected to design: Adelaide Contemporary, a new gallery and public sculpture park in South Australia; the Centre for Music, which will be a permanent home for the London Symphony Orchestra; and a new collection and research centre for the V&A in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Recent projects include the 35-acre Zaryadye Park adjacent to the Kremlin in Moscow; the Museum of Image & Sound on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; The Broad, a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley; the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University in New York; and The Juilliard School in Tianjin, China.

DS+R’s independent work includes the Blur Building, a pavilion made of fog on Lake Neuchâtel for the Swiss Expo; Exit, an immersive data-driven installation about human migration at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris; Charles James: Beyond Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Arbores Laetae, an animated micro-park for the Liverpool Biennial; Musings on a Glass Box at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris; and Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design at the Jewish Museum in New York. A major retrospective of DS+R’s work was mounted at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Most recently, the studio designed two site-specific installations at the 2018 Venice Biennale and the Costume Institute’s Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. DS+R also directed and produced The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock, a free, choral performance featuring 1,000 singers atop the High Line, co-created with David Lang.

DS+R has authored several books: The High Line (Phaidon Press, 2015), Lincoln Center Inside Out: An Architectural Account (Damiani, 2013), Flesh: Architectural Probes (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011), Blur: The Making of Nothing (Harry N. Abrams, 2002), and Back to the Front: Tourisms of War (Princeton Architectural Press, 1996).

DS+R has been distinguished with the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship awarded in the field of architecture, Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential" list, the Smithsonian Institution's 2005 National Design Award, the Medal of Honor and the President's Award from AIA New York, and Wall Street Journal Magazine's 2017 Architecture Innovator of the Year Award. Ricardo Scofidio and Elizabeth Diller are fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and are International Fellows at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Elizabeth Diller

Elizabeth Diller, (Poland,1954), is a partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). Alongside partner Ricardo Scofidio, Diller’s cross-genre work has been distinguished with TIME’s "100 Most Influential People" list and the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship awarded in the field of architecture.

Elizabeth Diller has also received the Wolf Prize in Architecture. Most recently, she led two cultural works significant to New York: The Shed and the expansion of MoMA. Diller also co-created, -directed and -produced The Mile-Long Opera, an immersive choral work staged on the High Line. Diller is a member of the UN Council on Urban Initiatives and a Professor of Architectural Design at Princeton University.

Ricardo Scofidio

Ricardo Scofidio, AIA (Born on April 16, 1935 in New York, and died on March 6, 2025 in New York,), was a partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). Scofidio studied at Columbia University before practising at a New York architecture firm and becoming a professor at the Cooper Union School of Architecture in 1965 for several decades. It was there he met then-student Diller, almost 20 years his junior, and they founded their studio in 1981, in 1999, they were the first architects to receive a MacArthur ‘genius’ grant (Architect Charles Renfro’s name was added after he became a partner more than two decades later).

Alongside partner Elizabeth Diller, Ric’s cross-genre work distinguished with TIME’s "100 Most Influential People" list and the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship awarded in the field of architecture. He led the design of the High Line – the adaptive reuse of an obsolete, industrial rail infrastructure into a 1.5 mile-long public park, Blur Building – a pavilion made of fog on Lake Neuchâtel for the 2002 Swiss Expo, and contributed to the redesign of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, and The Broad in Los Angeles.

Ric spearheads many of the studio’s independent works, including Soft Sell, a video installation in an abandoned porn theatre in Times Square; Tourisms: suitCase Studies, an investigation of American tourist attractions at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; and Musings on a Glass Box for the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris. He is a Professor Emeritus at The Cooper Union School of Architecture.

CHARLES RENFRO

Charles Renfro, AIA (Baytown, Texas in 1964) joined Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in 1997 and became a Partner in 2004. He led the design and construction of the studio’s first concert hall outside of the US - The Tianjin Juilliard School in China - as well as the studio's first public park outside of the US - Zaryadye Park in Moscow. Charles has also led the design of much of DS+R's academic portfolio, with projects completed at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Brown University, the University of Chicago, and the recently completed Columbia Business School.

Charles is also leading the design of two projects in his native Texas: the renovation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas, and Sarofim Hall, a new home for Rice University’s Visual Arts department in Houston. Charles is the Co-President of BOFFO, a nonprofit organization that supports the work of queer LGBTQ+ BIPOC artists and designers. He has twice been recognized with the "Out100" list and has also been distinguished as a notable LGBTQ leader by Crain's New York Business. He is a faculty member of the School of Visual Arts.

Benjamin Gilmartin

Benjamin Gilmartin joined Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in 2004 and became a partner in 2015. Ben led the redesign of Alice Tully Hall, multiple public spaces within the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts campus, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley.

Most recently, Ben completed the United States Olympic & Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs, hailed as one of the most accessible museums in the country, and led the design of the adjoining Park Union Bridge, a 250-foot floating curved steel structure. In addition to recently completing DS+R’s first building in Australia at the University of Sydney, Ben is also currently co-leading the design for the new home of MIT's School of Architecture and Planning in Cambridge and a major tech headquarters in the Pacific Northwest.

Published on: June 6, 2018

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