New activities on the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site will start within days to continue drawing hundreds people to the site.
Strobe and static illuminations of building facades on North Terrace will begin from this week – the first in a series of activities and innovations planned for the East End site.
Later in the year, a cultural lighting festival, as well as Christmas in the Laneway, will see bursts of colour and entertainment on the site with artists and entertainers mingled between traders and pop-up stalls.
An interactive lighting sculpture will be open to the general public and allow large groups of people to interact with the work.
The Hive is designed by Sydney based studio Amigo & Amigo, a passionate exponent of lighting and experimental forms. The studio uses light and materials to transform spaces and engage the public, and its work has been featured outside the Sydney Opera House for Chinese New Year and Vivid Festival for the past four years.
In an Australian first, Shared Studios will set up one of its portals at the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site. Each portal has a projector and speakers that allow people to see and speak with counterparts in a similar portal in another location, giving the impression of talking to people in real life. A screen will sit inside a gold-painted shipping container to connect people around the world through video chats. The New York company has set up these ‘portals’ across the world to connect people who would otherwise never meet – and soon there will be one in Adelaide.
Arts and culture will also play a major role in activating the site with Adelaide Festival and Fringe events and music festivals to be held around the site.
The hospital’s helipad is also being considered to be transformed into a temporary luxury camping hotel pending planning and commercial feasibility, based on Melbourne’s St Jerome’s – The Hotel, which has taken luxury camping to the next level on the rooftop of the Melbourne Central building.
More than 60 groups and organisations have put forward proposals to activate the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site with further exciting announcements to be made in the near future.