Progress at the Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge

We're thrilled to share a sneak peek from eight meters down in the excavation for our Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge! In collaboration with Wendy Lewin and Glenn Murcutt, we're crafting a world-class visitor experience centre, dedicated to showcasing the beautiful and unique opals, minerals and fossils uncovered in this remote area of NSW.

The building will be half-buried into the opal fields, passively drawing coolness from the ground it sits within. This sustainable design strategy is paired with distinctive malqaf thermal chimneys to funnel heat out, creating a striking and pragmatic building profile emerging from the landscape.

The Australian Opal Centre has been featured on ArchitectureAU's list of five most eagerly anticipated Australian projects of the year: https://architectureau.com/articles/five-much-anticipated-future-buildings-of-2024/#

And we invite you to explore more of this ground-breaking design on the project page here.