Calls for the 2022 NGV Architecture Commission Competition kick off tomorrow with Australian multi-disciplinary practices and studios invited to submit their entries.

Now in its seventh iteration, the commission is a chance for architects and designers to pen a temporary pavilion to be displayed throughout the summer at the NGV International’s Grollo Equiset Garden in Melbourne.

Open to practices across the country, the competition will be divided into two parts.

An anonymous Stage One calls for high level design proposals, of which up to five will be chosen to proceed to a paid Stage Two. This stage opens on 20 October 2021 and closes on 01 December 2021.

The five shortlisted submissions selected for Stage Two will be further developed and refined for presentation to the competition jury on 3 March 2022.

For the 2022 competition, the jury will be chaired by NGV assistant director Don Heron, alongside University of Technology Sydney lecturer Amaia Sanchez-Velasco, Architecture AU editor Linda Cheng, MC founding director Michael Banney, Monash University’s Mel Dodd and Kennedy Nolan founding director Rachel Nolan.

They’ll be looking for a design that is “thought-provoking, issues-led, relevant and resonant” and that can, in a non-didactic way, “facilitate or instigate conversations, dialogue, immersion or reflection”.

Design proposals can be many things including a performance space, a work of speculative architecture, a landscape intervention, a place designed for playful interaction or an immersive space for reflection.

The commission particularly calls on entrants to promote collaboration and multi-disciplinary thinking, while also demonstrating the capacity of design to actively engage the community.

The 2021 NGV Architecture Commission, currently under construction, was designed by Taylor Knights and James Carey.

Dubbed Pond[er], the team’s proposal is a conceptually rich and beautifully executed commentary on the mismanagement of land and water systems within our country.

When it opens on 29 October 2021, visitors will be presented with two distinct elements – a body of indigenous plants and a body of water.

The dimensions of the project itself mirror Sir Roy Grounds’s open-air courtyards featured in the original design of the NGV International, with the entire installation deliberately designed to “touch the ground very lightly”, seeking to insert itself into the existing garden rather than dominate it.

Pond[er] follows Yhonnie Scarce and Edition Office’s In Absence, which won the Victorian chapter’s Kevin Borland award for small project architecture and the global award for small building of the year at the 2020 Dezeen Awards.

Entries for the 2022 NGV Architecture Commission Competition open on 20 October 2021 and closes on 01 December 2021. Enter via the NGV website.

Lead render: The 2021 NGV Architecture Commission. Courtesy Taylor Knights and James Carey.