Dedicate to “all those who served, suffered and died”, the Vietnam Memorial resolves the occasionally conflicting needs of public interpretation of this contentious war on the one hand, and the more private commemoration of the war veterans on the other.

The memorial incorporates text, representational artwork and sculpture in an organic unified whole. A surrounding moat of water defines the solemn contemplative centre; this domed ’island’, linked to Anzac Parade by a broad ramp, is the focus of the rotated triangular composition.

The ring of granite stones suspended between the three 9m high concrete ‘stelae’ contains a roll of names of those killed in the war, and symbolises the journey from earth to heaven. The focus of the memorial is a 1967 photograph of Australian servicemen at Phouc Tuy in Vietnam, sandblasted into 200 triangular polished granite slabs, each a different size. A second stele wall shos a selection of contemporary quotations, spelled out in stainless steel letters set into the concrete. The third wall, behind the focal monolithic granite ‘altar’ is blank.

Constructed of high-quality off-form concrete, black granite and stainless steel, the project required sophisticated 3D modelling for the detailing of its complex curved surfaces.

The design responds to the symbolically powerful Napier Waller mosaics and figurative windows that line the domed Hall. The Tomb itself takes the form of an excavated tumulus, in red Rosso Daniel marble. The gilded inscription was hand-drawn and carved.

Four 11 metre tall freestanding pillars are placed in the adjoining niche, each symmetrical with the mosaic-clad mullions of the three major stained glass windows. These pillars represent, in material form, the four Platonic elements – glass for water, stone for earth, nickel silver for fire and jarrah timber for air. Their pure abstract presence enriches the representational complexity of the mosaic and stained glass, and the careful selection of materials, including pure white hand-cast glass, confirms the dominant red-gold colour of the original mosaics.

On 11 November 1993, the 75th anniversary of the Armistice, the Tomb was the focus of a full state funeral of the Unknown Soldier, exhumed from a World War 1 grave at Villiers Bretonneux in France.

The heritage fabric of the building, including remnant equipment, is almost entirely conserved, with new facilities fitted into its exciting, large-scale spaces. The major volume, the Turbine Hall, is a multi-use space for large-scale functions, activities and exhibitions, as well as being the major foyer and orientation space for the building.

The Powerhouse serves a range of professional and community groups in the region as well as accommodating touring productions by professional companies, specially-curated exhibitions and major one-off events, and has achieved an Australia-wide reputation for innovation and excellence.

The new building accommodates the offices and broadcasting studios of Gadigal Information Services (Koori Radio), National Indigenous Television (NITV) as well as other Indigenous organisations.

The site has a principal façade to the West on to Cope Street, three-storeys high and approximately 16m wide. The façade is clad in perforated louvre panels that provide sun shading and a canvas to showcase a significant commissioned indigenous artwork.

This strategy of cladding the building with an artwork, by Indigenous Artist Adam Hill, provides a proud Indigenous statement, sense of ownership and identity for the Redfern community. The artwork provides a vehicle by which to promote the new building and the area engendering a sense of optimism about the future for this vital inner-city community.

The site, at Hyde Park Corner, is at the fulcrum of the ceremonial route through London and is shared with the Wellington Arch and the Ionic Screen by Decimus Burton, both classical 18^th Century monuments by Decimus Burton, built from Portland stone. The Australian Memorial unites the green space at this critical intersection, and has been designed as a respectful gesture to both the existing historic monuments and the eloquent landform itself.

The wall of the Memorial encloses the site’s sloping grassed amphitheatre and creates a focal space, both for quiet reflection and for major commemorative events. The curved sculptural wall is entirely faced with prefabricated green granite from Western Australia. Each stone was prefabricated to exacting tolerances in Australia and site-fixed in a very short period, many to complex laser-cut stainless steel cradles.

The Memorial’s iconography is key to the symbolism of the design, and comprises a layering of two sets of texts – the larger letters are formed by ‘bolding’ the smaller type, a method designed to emphasise the relationship of the individual to the wider forces of war and society. The smaller type-face lists 24,000 towns, the birthplaces of the Australian service men and women. Significantly, many of these places are in the UK or Europe, and several are repeated in the large text type. The places named in the larger text are a section of 47 significant battlegrounds where the Australians fought alongside the British.

A major water feature was a requirement of the brief, and this has been designed as a random wash of water over successive panels of text, symbolically refreshing memories and cleansing the pain of suffering and loss. The Memorial was designed and constructed in under twelve months, and was dedicated by HM the Queen and by the Australian and British Prime Ministers on Remembrance Day, 2003.

The project was designed to be experienced at a freeway speed of 110km per hour. It includes three series of sculptural sound walls, a pedestrian bridge and a set of design parameters for road bridges, crash barriers and retaining structures.

The main series of walls by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer total over 2 kilometres in length, and are made from facetted austenitic steel sheets modelled in simple concave and convex folds to produce a gently undulating wave of steel floating on a recessed dark concrete base.

A second series of walls by Taylor Cullity Lethlean, are translucent and transparent, preserving light and views from residential areas. These are edge-lit acrylic, sandblasted with a digital pattern and overlaid with coloured precast concrete blades. The third series, by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, build on the existing landform with dramatic earth sculpting. The use of gabions and heavily planted earth berms achieve the required sound control.

A major element of the work was a new pedestrian bridge, which was designed as a gateway to the distant city of Melbourne, visible on the horizon. The bridge, a complex curve in plan and elevation, is a tubular steel truss faced with the same austenitic steel as the main sound walls, which at this point appear to leap over the road in a gesture of welcome or farewell.