The project, now under construction, aims, to give the centrepiece of the city an active relevant new life after 80 years. The building will house major performance, event and meeting facilities, the offices of the Council and Lord Mayor and a new and enlarged Museum of Brisbane. An extensive new kitchen will be excavated into the basement to serve state-of-the-art conference and event facilities including the 1500-seat Grand Auditorium with its conserved organ.

A significant aspect is the upgrading of the structure and services to meet contemporary safety and operational standards. The exterior will be enhanced by the reconstructions of decades of additions on the roof, whilst the significant heritage interiors will be conserved and enhanced. Access and circulation will be improved throughout the building, as will the acoustic performance of the major spaces.

The entire project is being designed to achieve 5 Star Greenstar rating with a pilot Public Buildings rating tool developed specially for the project.

To make a showcase of Lismore’s timber industry heritage, the first floor gallery ‘container’ is clad in locally sourced Australian hardwood, reducing embodied energy.

The form and scale of the building complements the historic Conservatorium and Library, whilst the first floor Galley bends to embrace the existing large Tallow wood tree and make a signaling gesture to Keen Street.

A truly sustainable Arts Centre is proposed with innovations such as naturally lit galleries, masonry walls made from the recycled Block ‘C’ brickwork, trees planted to reduce solar heat gain on the building’s northern side, the reduction of embodied building energy with simple lightweight timber construction to the first floor, a naturally ventilated roof plenum for summer cooling, winter solar pre-heating for conditioned air plus gravity fed storm water storage for WCs, washing and landscape irrigation. The smaller roof area resulting from the two-storey footprint minimises solar heat gain, and openings on the hot and cold sides of the building are designed to allow effective cross ventilation to reduce air conditioning loads to the foyer and ancillary spaces. Offices are positioned on the cooler eastern side of the building to reduce reliance on air conditioning.

The Centre occupies the courtyard of a former caretaker’s cottage, which has been enclosed to provide shade and security. A simple palette of natural materials highlights the qualities of the trees, forming a quality background for the changing display. Externally, a new entry pavilion provides a space for orientation and information, and the landscape has been reconfigured to feature two large bonsai.

A new cinema complex of 730 seats was placed on the roof of the building, with retail and other functions below. The auditoria are articulated as a series of metal-clad boxes, with an attached glass foyer overlooking the city and the Harbour. A promenade staircase was developed as a sculptural link to the various levels, lit by an elevated glass roof lantern, which marks the street corner.

Internally, the original concrete structure of the building is left exposed, a contrast to the selection of metals – zinc, aluminium, stainless steel – and the white glass and grey stone used for the circulation zone. The upper-level foyer and the cinemas are enriched with traditional vibrant reds.

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.

Customs House is a significant heritage building dating from 1845. It was built in successive stages in a variety of differing Classical styles, reaching its pre-renovation stage after he enclosure of its internal court in 1918. The significant 19th Century sandstone fabric was extensively conserved, and unsympathetic additions removed to reveal as much as possible of the original courtyard space. The most important interior spaces were also restored, while other areas were left flexibly serviced for a variety of future cultural uses.

Escalators and new glass lifts created a vertical public promenade, catching unexpected views of the surrounding city through the fully glazed new south wall.

The high level of energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable design achieved for Customs House is unusual for a heritage refurbishment project. The design integrates sophisticated mechanical, lighting and solar control systems to enable virtually the whole building to be naturally ventilated and naturally lit.

The glass roof, floating above the upper levels, bring light deep into the six-storey atrium. Layered glass solar-control blades track the sun throughout the day and year, reacting to overcast and night-time conditions.

A significant element of the project was the reworking of the Customs House Square. This was the location of the pre-1848 shoreline of Sydney Cove, where European settlers first landed in Australia. The paving of the Square marks this line using the intersection of the building’s axial geometry with that of the adjoining streets.

As part of the Centenary of Federation, the School of Arts has been conserved, refurbished and extended. The project includes a range of cultural and community facilities for the town of Tenterfield. A new library occupies the 1912 Billiard Room, and includes a new wing accommodating the library book-stacks and offices. A 250-seat theatre and foyer, with full backstage facilities, is formed around the 1902 Boer War memorial Hall. The focus of the complex is the Henry Parkes and Federation Museum in the Original Hall and reading rooms.

The design articulates and functionally unifies the seven construction stages grouped around the sheltered central courtyard. The use of local red brick and the scale of the projecting bay windows unite the varied roof forms of the new and heritage buildings. The School of Arts is the focus for historical and cultural activity within the Tenterfield region and played a major role in the Centenary of Federation celebrations.

The Library required detailed briefing and specialised design to take account of the needs of sight-impaired and blind workers and visitors. Signage, colours, textured finishes and natural and artificial lighting, as well as more conventional accessibility considerations, were developed to orientate users and distinguish the various spaces.

The sound studios are lined in a mix of timber and hard and soft surfaces to enable the reverberation to be tuned for specific needs, and to create a high-quality environment for the performers. A central day-lit double storey spine provides orientation and address for all the major facilities, and links the existing buildings on each side of the new library.