Artists: Tony Albert and Nell
Fabricator / Designer: Urban Art Project (UAP)
Location: Northgate, QLD
In a first for the Queensland Cultural Centre, an artist-designed play sculpture has joined Australia’s lineage of ‘big’ things. Installed in the forecourt of the Gallery of Modern Art, The Big Hose (2022–25) is a 119-metre-long oversized garden hose that references the verandahs and subtropical gardens of Queensland’s domestic architecture.
Created by Tony Albert and Nell, the work sits at Kurilpa Point on the Brisbane River, a place of long-standing significance to the Turrbal and Yaggera peoples, and reflects on local histories of First Peoples, migration and art through a playful, large-scale form.
Partridge provided the structural expertise to turn this fluid artistic vision into a robust reality. The 119-metre tube winds into large, cantilevered loops reaching up to four metres in height. Our primary challenge was ensuring these high-reaching loops remained stable under public use while maintaining the slender, organic look of a tangled hose.
Because the sculpture was too large to transport in one piece, the geometry was divided into sections. This required careful engineering of the connections to handle the way aluminium expands and contracts in the Queensland heat. Every joint was designed to stay flush and secure to prevent finger entrapment.
Fine detailing extended to the butterfly elements, where slender plate forms were engineered to remain visually delicate without bending or buckling, resolving complex geometry within the demands of a robust public play space.
https://www.uapcompany.com/projects/the-big-hose
https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibition/tony-albert-and-nell-the-big-hose
