GUNDITJ MIRRING KEEPING PLACE & BUSINESS CENTRE

The Gunditj Mirring Project is a ‘Keeping Place’ for culturally-significant artefacts and objects located on a spectacular site overlooking the Darlot Creek, near Lake Condah and  Heywood in western Victoria. Phillips/Pilkington created a design which comprises work places, display and storage and meeting rooms for the Gunditjmara community which expresses a design ‘duality’ by counterposing a round-plan tall volume, culturally based on traditional structures made by the Gunditjmara with a radial-plan low form, more ‘westernized’ section, where work, meetings and entry occurs.  Materials were chosen for cultural relevance, economy and longevity and feature timber cladding, steelwork, solid timber windows and doors and metal roofing.

A solar-lit and roof-level lantern above the circular Keeping Place room will act as a permanent ‘light-on-the-hill’, in memory of both the long ago and more recent history of the area.

Project Value: $3.25m

Completed 2020

Photography by Terry Hope