Design revealed for planned Australian Opal Centre

Backers of the proposed Australian Opal Centre have revealed the design of the proposed $34 million museum in the mining town of Lightning Ridge in outback northern NSW.

The Australian Opal Centre, which will house “the world’s most comprehensive collection of treasures from Australia’s opal fields”, will be located on a 3.1-hectare site adjacent to the disused Three Mile open cut opal mine in Lightning Ridge.

Conceived as “a 21st-century architectural icon, a world-class tourist attraction and nationally-significant facility”, visitors will approach via the historic Three Mile opal field and into a structure “recessed into, and protected by the earth.”

A long, gently descending ramp will take them below ground and into the side of an open-cut mine, “with the geological strata of opal-bearing country exposed before them”. 
The journey will then continue into the permanent exhibitions, education and learning facilities, a cinema, gallery spaces, a research library, a scientific laboratory and underground gardens. 

The design by Pritzker Prize laureate Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin is for a two-storey, 100-metre-long, 30-metre-wide building that will sit at ground level. It will be sustainable and self-sufficient by generating its own power from solar panels and collecting its own water from the roof.

Murcutt and Lewin’s design includes subterranean spaces that will take visitors deep into the opal field and also includes an underground ‘Gondwanan garden’, which will feature Wollemi pine trees, ferns, cycads and other plants with a long fossil history.

Explaining the design, Lewin stated “the site is off the grid and without any town services. We have designed the building to generate its own power, made provision for the collection, storage and recycling of water, on-site management of waste systems and passive heating and cooling systems.

“The structure will be ‘in and of’ the site. Being substantially embedded allows us to take advantage of the earth’s thermal mass and we will use some of the excavated material in the off-form concrete structure.

“Our ambition, and that of our clients and their community, is for this to be an exemplar of site appropriate, autonomous architecture. We believe it will be unique and culturally significant, globally.”

The new museum will have spaces for permanent and temporary exhibitions; curatorial facilities; education and learning facilities; a library; workshops for opal cutting, carving and jewellery making; research laboratories and theatre spaces for events and conferences.

Approval for the development of the site was granted in 2008 and the site was excavated in 2013. The Lightning Ridge Opal and Fossil Centre Incorporated (LRODC Inc) is seeking private donations and more than $20 million in public funding through the NSW Government’s Regional Growth - Environment and Tourism Fund and the Federal Government’s Building Better Regions Fund to finance the construction of the project. Completion is expected in 2020.

Image: The proposed Australian Opal Centre by Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin. Courtesy of the Australian Opal Centre. 

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