The renovation of A4 following a neighbourhood fire offers opportunities to revisit the Ground Floor and the Foyer, where Proto, the store at A4, resides. Architect and creative practitioner Meghan Ho-Tong is invited to expand the spatial and temporal potentials of Proto at the entrance to the foundation:

We borrow the language of the garden to think through a new spatiality for the foyer. Gardens are places for wandering and discovery; moving amongst tall trees, brushing against foliage and flowers. Proto’s new store exhibits fragments and offcuts of artworks along tree-like formations of shelves. A garden also offers moments of pause, sitting on the earth under a canopy of trees. A large communal table becomes a central spatial object around which people gather, share and talk.

A wall-hanging timber shelving system by James Mudge is adapted into freestanding spatial objects to move through and around. In addition to Meghan’s analogy of the garden, Proto is conscious of the building's previous life as a general store and is imbued with that charisma; encouraging jumble and stocking all-sorts. A4’s value of ‘habitability’ – to be a welcoming and comfortable place to engage with art and artworks – is at the fore of the project.

"You need to know the cuts, edges and shapes of your shards to understand how they could work together in some form of wholeness," said Meghan, speaking of the fragments of Proto and A4 that cohabit downstairs. 

In this way, Meghan’s design of Proto is complemented by A4’s commissioning of artist Bella Knemeyer to create an interactive ‘About A4’ at the entrance to the foundation, as well as a refurbished Reading Room that, in turn, interacts with A4’s free-to-public library. Together, the environment encourages visitors and friends to meander and stay awhile.