Cooks’ Cottage
Client: City of Melbourne
Location: Melbourne, Vic
Completed: 2018
Cooks’ Cottage is a much loved (but underutilised) tourist attraction located in Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens. Convergence was tasked with developing a new interpretative experience to be located within the barn of the 18th century cottage. The main challenge was to find a way to insert an engaging multi-lingual, multi-media interpretative experience into a small, unlined, unheated brick floored heritage barn. Our solution to the multiple constraints was to design a free-standing internal frame and lining to the barn which acts as projection surface and support structure.
Convergence developed treatments for three programs including an immersive event which uses the cottage as a ‘time machine’ to transport visitors from contemporary Melbourne back to Captain Cook’s 18th century origins. The other program treatments cover Captain Cook and his journeys and the relationship of Cook and his family to the cottage.
