Among the entries to our 2024 Public Building and Timber Cladding categories, few arrived wearing their story quite as plainly as the Ned Kelly Discovery Hub, the gateway to Glenrowan’s Siege Precinct, where Content Studio has taken a structure of twisted steel helices, inspired by the iconic armour of the Kelly gang, and wrapped it in a curved façade of charred Jarrah that recalls both that armour and the fires that shaped the events of June 1880. Completed in June 2023 by builder Midson, with structural and civil engineering by Webb Consult, interpretive design by Convergence Design Australia and landscape architecture by Sinatra Murphy Studio, the building rises to a circular viewing platform reached by a curved staircase that follows the line of one helix, from where visitors survey the key staging points of the siege.
The geometry was the whole problem, and timber was the answer, because a continuously curving skin wrapping a spiralling frame that had to accommodate movement is not something many cladding materials will do gracefully. As Content Studio put it in its entry, “creating the façade from timber allowed flexibility to work and adapt to the complex geometry of the façade on site,” with the incremental, sectioned boards making it possible to form a curve around the helices while allowing for any movement in the structural steel.
Fire, armour and the Australian bush
The species selection carried as much of the narrative as the form, with Jarrah chosen for its natural hardness and then charred in the Japanese Shou Sugi Ban tradition, a treatment that, in the entrant’s words, acknowledges the role of fire in the Australian bush and in the events of the siege, while charring the timber to eliminate the need for reapplied finishes across Victoria’s severe north-eastern climate. A single coat of WOCA exterior oil, a water and plant-based product that absorbs deep into the boards, slows their acclimatisation and minimises the risk of splitting, and against the blackened exterior, natural Blackbutt board and batten lines the stair wall to create a strong tonal contrast, continuing inside as a backdrop to the exhibition graphics by Pidgeon Ward, where the timber linings recall the wooded country in which so much of the siege, including Ned’s capture, played out.
The result is a building that has since drawn wide recognition, including Overall Winner and Regional Design at the Lysaght Inspirations Design Awards and a National Award for Excellence from Interpretation Australia, and one that shows what timber can do when it is asked to bend to an idea rather than the other way around.
The Ned Kelly Discovery Hub was entered in the Public Building and Timber Cladding categories at the 2024 Australian Timber Design Awards. From national visitor attractions to a single clad wall, we celebrate timber projects of every scale. Entries for the 2026 Australian Timber Design Awards close this Friday 10 July, enter now at timberdesignawards.com.au.
