The Co-op is a proud community-backed local business in the Barossa Valley. After completing the masterplan in 2012, NH were appointed to develop a unique market-based Barossa-fed supermarket and expanded retail offer. The project is developed through an exploration which reveals the site, township, river and cultivated landscape of the Barossa.
Our approach to value the building as a civic structure has allowed the design team to celebrate the interior with a large wall of south facing glass, a town marker and a visual dialogue with the interior produce hall.
The new building presents a long and low face to Murray Street, setback from the boundary to provide a public garden space and regional gesture through the ‘BAROSSA’ punched sign. This linear garden is one of a network of proposed, high-quality, landscaped public places that include a linear undercover arcade connecting a small courtyard on Gawler Street to the north.
The intensity of the city is assembled within the gabled interior, conveyed through a cluster of interior elements, further developed in the design of environmental graphics.
The primary meeting and event destination is the square on the southern side, borrowing shelter from existing buildings and open to cooler late summer breezes across the North Para River. The Square, though privately owned, is delivered for the community to use for both organised events and everyday meeting.
