All Saints' Church, Tamrookum, Queensland
The All Saints Church at Tamrookum was the last and most developed of R. S. Dods' six timber chapels and coincides with the peak of his ecclesiastical work.

Angle Vale Bridge, Angle Vale, SA
The Angle Vale Bridge is the largest and best example of the three historic arch bridges remaining in Australia. All are in South Australia. Using technology originally imported from Europe and America, laminated arch bridges were constructed in many Australian colonies from as early as 1853.

Beach House, Stradbroke Island, Qld
Integrated into the landscape, this linear and transparent timber beach house allows its external spaces to blend and penetrate its more regular living areas.

Board shed, Tuan, Queensland
Modules of nail plated hardwood trusses, simply supported on cantilevered CCA treated poles, roof this large industrial store building. The design was driven by economy but returns nail plate technology to its original market: large scale industrial roof construction.

Board Store, Tumut, NSW
This is one of the largest nail gusset plate portal frame buildings constructed from glue laminated softwood in Australia.

Brunsdon - Hoelzl House
A sytlish and elegant combination of architectural design and owner builder dedication.

Carlton Clydesdale Pavilion, Sydney Showground, NSW
The design of this pavilion, with its large recycled columns and bearers, deliberately reconstructs the heavy timber forms of industrial structures built in Australia from the early 1800’s till Federation.

Centre for the Arts, Hobart, Tasmania
The four storey warehouse has a heavy timber post and beam structure, enclosed by masonry facades. The internal frame has lines of large section timber columns supporting bearers, hardwood joists and two layers of timber flooring.

Church, Dural, NSW
This building is the first stage of a church complex. The project had a limited budget and costs determined much of the design. The decision to use a curved haunch timber portal frame as the primary structure came about through early cost management studies.

Community and Worship Centre - Menai
The congregation of this church had definite ideas of the operation of the building and the configuration for the worship space. As well as making structural sense, the "spider web" of black steel tension ties over the centre of the congregation allows the inclined radiating timber members to define a secondary focus over the congregation.

Composite timber and concrete bridge over the Maria River
Composite timber and concrete bridge that has served on one on Australia's busiest roads for over 40 years.

Cowra Bridge, Cowra, NSW
The Cowra bridge is the largest remaining example of a composite steel and timber vehicular bridge in Australia. It was the second of three bridges built across the Lachlan River at Cowra. For the first bridge, opened in 1870, American bridge building technology was imported and three spans of patent designed McCallum trusses were built.

Dalgety Centre, Sydney Showground, NSW
The architects considered laminated timber beams for the roof of this project at the outset, believing them to be a cost effective alternative that fitted the nature and character of the space they wanted to create

Domed Atrium - Hobart, Tasmania
The centrepiece of Forestry Tasmania's new offices is a graceful glue laminated timber and steel dome.

Drying shelter, Narangba, Queensland
The building is a simple gabled roof shelter with CCA treated slash pine poles cantilevered out of the ground to support a roof of longitudinal plywood box beams and transverse glue laminated pine trusses

Elwood Canal Pedestrian Bridge, St Kilda, Victoria
This pedestrian bridge is a simply supported curved beam structure. The primary elements of the bridge, a pair of glue laminated jarrah beams provided the minimum clearance needed under the bridge for boating

Factory building, Homebush Bay, NSW
The design of this factory was a culmination of ideas and experimentation for Ralph Symonds and represents the zenith of the cycle of Australian glue laminated arch construction. Covering 5 hectares, this building was the largest single industrial building in the Southern Hemisphere when it was constructed.

Factory Building, Legana, Tasmania
Externally, this building looks little different to the thousands of portal factory and store buildings found in any of Australia's industrial estates. However, it is a timber building, even though it was originally designed as a steel one. The cause of the change was cost. The timber portal came in about $5,000 cheaper than the steel alternative and the builder could erect structure with his own carpentry team.

Farmhouse, Ocean view, Qld
A functional farmhouse with large spaces, open view and intimate, relaxing corners

Federation Square
Federation Square is a complex of associated buildings adjacent to Melbourne’s characteristic Flinders St Station, providing a link over the tangle of railway lines running between the city of Melbourne and the Yarra River. Based on a design selected after an international design competition, the realised Federation Square complex pursues a variety of urban planning, architectural and environmental goals.

Food services building, Woden, ACT
After his experience with plywood clad trusses at the church in Manilla NSW, architect Ian McKay devised a true folded plate for the food services building at Woden, ACT. Surround by high rise offices, this cafeteria was planned as a small scale pavilion with the natural finish of the folded plywood roof structure as a major feature.

Foundry Building, Alexandria, NSW
This foundry building is the first modern glue laminated building in Australia. Glue lamination was probably introduced into Australia about 1860 by colonists accustomed to European practice. The extent of its use at that time is unknown but was probably restricted to the manufacture of small curved members such as those seen at the chapel in Queenscliffe.

Hampden Bridge, Kangaroo Valley, NSW
The Hampden Bridge is a 77.1 m span three pin suspension bridge with timber stiffening trusses and decking. Each side of the bridge has a pair of trusses. These bear on stone footings at each end of the bridge and meet at a hinged joint at the centre

Hampden Bridge, Wagga Wagga, NSW
The bridge is a Howe through truss with timber top and bottom chords, timber compression diagonals and vertical steel tension rods. It has three 33.5 m (110') truss spans and nine trestle and beam approach spans. All the timber elements in the main spans are spaced pairs of members while timber to timber joints are cast iron compression seats.

Hardware store, Tullamarine, Victoria
This complex consciously displays a diversity of different timber based products, structural forms and jointing techniques. Solid timber is used in bolted columns, framing and trusses and plywood in diaphragms, shear walls and external cladding.

Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre, Glen Iris, Victoria
Many species of timber are naturally resistant to the corrosive environment found in some buildings. At the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre, radiata pine has been treated with copper chrome arsenic (CCA) salts to increase its natural resistant to the corrosive atmosphere found around a heated indoor pool.

Horicultural Training Centre, Hobart
A bright and airy complex of classrooms and associated facilities for a small educational organisation.

John XXIII College Chapel, Mt. Claremont, WA
The John XXIII Chapel continued the long tradition of timber construction in Australian ecclesiastical building.

Kenny Residence
A low cost home combining the sophistication and character of traditional Japanese design whilst serving as a haven for relaxed Australian living, all in a typical Melbourne subdivision.

Kingfisher Bay Resort and Village, Fraser Island, Queensland
The design of the Kingfisher Bay Resort and Village was underpinned by the architects' desire to achieve the most ecologically and environmentally responsible development within the financial constraints. They sought to touch the ground lightly

Launceston Swim Centre, Glen Dhu, Tasmania
The use of timber to replace the original steel design of this swimming centre resulted in a much more economic and aesthetically pleasing building.

Library, Pennant Hills, NSW
Refined and well finished library building featuring inclined and braced glue laminated rafters.

Manilla Presbyterian Church
The architect of this small parish church at Manilla embraced plywood and exploited its natural finish and structural capacity as a shear skin in the elements of roof design.

McFarlane Bridge, Maclean, NSW
This bridge has 16 timber beam spans and one wrought iron and timber lifting span of 20.3 m The beam spans are constructed from five lines of natural round grey ironbark beams bearing on compound corbels.

Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Center
The Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre is the larget intergrated sports and lesure facility of its type in Australia and provides an international standard sporting venue for Melbourne. Facilities include court space for basketball, badminton, squash and table tennis, a 75m multi purpose pool, diving tower and wave pool. The court spaces utilize tas oak timber flooring.

Mordialloc Creek Pedestrian Bridge, Mordialloc, Victoria
The Mordialloc Creek bridge is a 40 m span three pin arch structure that follows in the tradition of timber arch bridges established by the 50 m span Greensborough Bridge built in 1975.

Motor auction showroom, Enfield, NSW
Malcolm Stanley and his engineering firm of Stanley and Llewellyn were pioneers of modern Australian glue laminated construction and the building at Enfield is one of the few of their buildings known to remain.

Murdoch Magazine Headquarters
The finger wharf and store at Pier 8/9 in Sydney Harbour’s Walsh Bay was built in 1912 and operated by the Central Wharf Stevedoring Co. in association with Gilchrist Watt and Co. between 1914 and 1968. After its life as a goods transfer station ended, the building sat unused for thirty years before being resurrected as the offices for Murdoch Magazines to a design by architectural firm Bates Smart.

National Wine Centre
Opened in 2001, Adelaide’s National Wine Centre was conceived as an iconic tourist and educational facility showcasing Australia’s internationally renowned wine industry. The complex contains an interactive museum, a comprehensive range of wine-tasting facilities, offices and function rooms. It was designed in a form reminiscent of wine barrels, wineries and the skeletal frames of vines in the vineyard.

Newport Railway Workshops
The Newport Railway Workshops demonstrate the diversity of timber in industrial building construction between the 1880's and the 1920's. The workshops are a sprawling complex of buildings that served as the principal construction and maintenance workshops for the Victorian railway system for a century.

Olympic Viewing Pavilion, Homebush, NSW
This project showed just what is possible in a very short time frame working with knowledge within the parameters of a largely timber structure. The roof utilises multi pinned stainless steel dowel connections.

Own House
Bud Brannigan's own house, in the suburban Brisbane suburb of St. Lucia, is a contemporary interpretation of the traditional Queensland elevated lightweight timber house.

Parliament House, Canberra, ACT
Early in the design process for the Parliament House, the architects established that Australian timber would be employed widely for both aesthetic and practical reasons.

Pavilion on the Park, Adelaide, SA
In the early 1960s, a new generation of Australian architects began to emerge and, inspired by the timber buildings of rural and industrial Australia, sparked a revival in timber design and construction for commercial buildings. One of the first indications of this was the construction of timber hyperbolic paraboloid shells (hypars) as the roof structure for the restaurant in Adelaide's South Parkland.

Pavilion, Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart, Tasmania
This pavilion, known as Wombat One, was the prototype for a simple yet finely detailed portal frame system, constructed from a set of standardised parts milled largely from standard 100 x 38 framing grade hardwood.

Pedestrian Bridge, Greensborough, Victoria
This pedestrian bridge is a three pin arch structure which spans 50 m over the Plenty River. The main arch members are parabolically curved glue laminated radiata pine elements positioned 1800 mm apart.

Potash store, Cape Cuvier, WA
The store at Cape Cuvier was designed to survive in an aggressive physical environment influenced by the potential for cyclones and the corrosive effects of the nearby ocean and salt stockpiles. Stringent safety, strength and anti-corrosion guidelines were imposed.

Pump house, Woolmers, Longford, Tasmania
The pump house is an octagonal building with masonry walls supporting a complex timber framed roof structure. The main elements of this are four intersecting Queen post trusses that span from opposing corners of the building.

Resawing mill, North Altona, Victoria
The revival of timber construction generated by Australian architects in the early 1960s led to the development of specialist timber fabricators. In Melbourne, H. Beecham and Co. Ltd. developed a specialist timber engineering section and built their complex at Altona North as a showcase of timber construction.

Riawunna Aboriginal Education Center
An innovative design and concept which, using simple materials like timber and galvanised steel sheet, integrates landscape and architecture to striking effect.

RMIT Textiles Building
The School of Textiles designed by H2O Architects with Bates Smart Architects is arguably the largest timber clad building in Australia. The striking western red cedar façade is reminiscent of the woven fabric produced by the building users.

Royal Melbourne Exhibition Building
Designed by noted Australian architect, Joseph Reed, and erected in 1880-1, the Royal Melbourne Exhibiton Centre it is a fine early example of the use of timber in the structure and finish of a large classical style building in Australia

Speculative House, Buderim, Queensland
This speculative house was designed to provide a model for a low cost timber alternative to the fully tailor-made house. It displays an effective architectural and engineering simplicity, with deliberate and clear organisation of materials, functions and structure.

St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Gracemere, Qld
A multi purpose church with curvaceous and segmented timber portal structure and veneered ceiling panels

St Patrick’s Cathedral
After the original church building was extensively damaged by fire in 1996, the trustees of St Patrick’s Cathedral sought to establish a new cathedral complex to meet the needs and religious aspirations of the people of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Parramatta. The trustees aimed to restore the original church as the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and build a new cathedral extension to accommodate 800 people. The cathedral complex was also to include a cloister, new parish hall and incorporate the historic Murphy House, the original presbytery.

Store Building, Cardiff
The Cardiff building is the longest clean span timber portal building in Australia.

Store building, Clayton, Victoria
In the Clayton building, the columns and rafters are box sections that house between each other at the main moment joints. The regular lines of deep plywood purlins, set between the portals, establish rhythms in the roof and soften the light from the strips of translucent roof sheet.

Store building, Kalangadoo, SA.
The main structure of the building is nine semi-circular glue laminated arches at 4.6 m centres. These were fabricated from oregon laminates, butt jointed and laid up with a resorcinol glue. With a span of 46.2 m, this simple store building is the longest clear span glue laminated arch building in Australia.

Store building, Mt. Gambier, SA
. Economy governed much of the design for timber industrial buildings such as this. However, the confidence and technical skill in its design, the assured detailing and the fine 2:1 width to height proportion of this simple form endow this building with a strength and scale uncommon ifor buildings of this type..

Store building, St Peters, NSW
This building marks the beginning of a cycle of glue laminated arch construction in Australia that continued until 1961. Ralph Symonds had found during the war that glue laminated arch construction was quick and economical.

Store buildings, Dubbo, NSW
Hundreds of military buildings were designed using shear connector joint trusses during the Pacific War and the largest of these were the curved roof inland stores buildings constructed for the RAAF during 1942 and 1943.

Store buildings, Werribee, Victoria
The store buildings at Werribee were among the first major structures built in a flurry of war time experimentation and innovation in timber construction in Australia. In the twenty years that preceded World War 2, complacency had forestalled developments in Australian timber design. This disappeared in the frantic building effort that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour

Stores buildings, Ermington, NSW
The US military introduced proven timber construction techniques and designs to Australia through their representatives on the Allied Works Council (AWC). The most important of these were nail joint construction and the design for the arched store buildings that became known as igloos.

Suber Residence
a small house for Margot and Ken Suber that overlooks the Huon valley in Tasmania's south east. Reference to the Australian vernacular for building "sheds" - flimsy structures, clad in iron, underpins the architectural language of this house.

Sunny Hills Country Club
This Sunny Hill Country Club Hotel was built from timber for two main reasons: timber has an established association with relaxation and leisure and it is an easy to use and economic building material.

Sydney Opera House
The rich and extensive timber interiors, of the Sydney Opera House, an exemplary example of the use of plywood and laminated hardwood in a public building. Also discusses Utzon's origional unbuilt proposal.

Sydney Showground Exhibition Building
One of the largest structures to be built at Homebush Bay for the Royal Agricultural Society and the 2000 Olympic Games is the timber dome and hall of the Exhibition Building.

The Brambuk Living Cultural Centre, Halls Gap, Victoria
The design of the building, Brambuk, 'the White Cockatoo', is a fusion of holistic and organic architecture, the forms and elements of the building reflecting many influences from the culture of the local Aboriginal communities and the surrounding landscape.

The World of the Platypus Building, Healesville, Victoria
The World of the Platypus Building, with a form metaphoric of the animal itself, extends the vocabulary of sustainable and organic architecture that Burgess and his team developed for the Brambuk building. Again timber is a key element in the design.

Uluru Aboriginal Cultural Centre
Located one kilometre to the south of Uluru in central Australia, Uluru-Kata Tjuta Aboriginal Cultural Centre is intended to be a meeting place where the Anangu people of the western desert, the traditional custodians of the national park, can share their stories and traditional laws with visitors to the national park.

University Clubhouse
The brief for the Sunshine Coast University Club required a building that could provide varied functions and could also be expanded in the future. A tight budget + short building program resulted in much of structure being prefabricated and the use of steel being minimised.

War Memorial Swimming Centre, Devonport, Tasmania
Wishing to avoid an unsympathetic or institutional building for this landscaped site, the architects sought to support the roof of the pool's amenities areas with a three dimensional timber space frame.

Wesleyan Chapel, Queenscliff, Victoria
This is a small church, with buttressed masonry walls and a high pitch timber framed roof. The roof structure has three King post trusses whose rafters run past the bottom chord onto the masonry buttress. This church appears to be one of the first examples of the structural use of glue laminated timber in Australia.

Workshop buildings, Archerfield, Queensland
The arched igloo buildings at Archerfield represent the high point of Australian timber construction during the Second World War. With the need for air defence in southern Queensland in 1942, Archerfield Airport became an important aircraft assembly, repair and staging point.





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