Hassell’s design for Ngurra: The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Precinct has recently been recognised on the global stage with a 2025 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum Museum for Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

Conceived in collaboration with Djinjama, COLA Studio and Edition Office, the project is set to become one of Australia’s most significant cultural institutions, a place where First Nations histories, knowledge and traditions are embedded in every aspect of the design.

Located in Canberra on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, Ngurra is both a bold architectural statement and a profound cultural intervention, harmonising ancient wisdom with contemporary design innovation.

The precinct integrates flowing organic forms, natural materials such as rammed earth and timber, and strong symbolic gestures that speak to Country, kinship and ceremony. More than a landmark, Ngurra aspires to be a place of healing, truth-telling and reconciliation, rebalancing Australia’s civic landscape.

To explore the vision behind the project and its broader significance, Clémence Carayol speaks with Mark Loughnan, Principal, Head of Design and Board Director at Hassell.

Architecture & Design: Winning the 2025 International Architecture Award is an extraordinary recognition. What does this accolade mean to Hassell and your collaborators, particularly in the context of Ngurra’s cultural significance?

Mark Loughnan: Winning this award is a nice honour for Hassell and our partners Djinjama, COLA Studio and Edition Office. We envisioned Ngurra as a new national landmark and this recognition helps acknowledge the importance of creating a globally recognisable home for the National Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Centre and The National Resting Place, where architecture is an instrument for healing and a place of memory and meaning.

To have this vision celebrated on a global stage validates the dialogue, listening, and creative partnership that went into shaping the project and, for Hassell, it further establishes the firm’s reputation as an innovator of designing works of both global significance and deep local resonance.

How did you approach balancing contemporary architectural innovation with the deep traditions and wisdom of First Nations cultures in the design of Ngurra?

At its heart, Ngurra is Country-led. Our approach wasn’t about balancing two competing forces, but rather about listening deeply and letting First Nations knowledge guide how innovation could emerge.

We looked for ways contemporary design could honour and strengthen traditions, whether through form, materiality, or the way people move through the site. For example, the canopy that spans the Cultural Centre Plaza is a strong architectural gesture: a lightweight, soaring form that appears almost to float above the landscape.

Yet its bowed shape is a deliberate act of reverence, bowing towards Mount Ainslie, a sacred women’s place, and collecting rainwater to return to the lake and river systems. Internally, the design prioritised courtyards and gardens, embedding sky views and connections to light, wind, and water into the daily experience of the precinct.

Much like how the Sydney Opera House became a symbol of modern Australia, Ngurra aspired to be a bold and enduring symbol that rightly placed First Nations histories and cultures in Australia’s national conscience.

Could you tell us about the collaborative process with Djinjama, COLA Studio and Edition Office; how did these partnerships influence and shape the project?

I think it was an open and enjoyable collaboration growing out of trust built over years, beginning with honest conversations about how architecture has historically contributed to dispossession.

That resulted in a design far richer than any single practice could have achieved alone. The design of the precinct embodied multiple layers of authorship and perspective, united by a shared goal: to create a place of cultural dignity and generosity.

Ngurra is located on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country. In what ways did the landscape and Country itself guide your design decisions?

The Ngurra Cultural Precinct should be inseparable from the land it sits on, a place where Country, kin, and community are embedded in every decision. Home to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples who have lived for thousands of years amongst a landscape of limestone plains, mountains, swamps and streams, this Country is set within an undulating landscape. From the very first sketches, our design for Ngurra was drawn from the drama, beauty and spontaneity of the region’s beautiful wild grassland landscapes.

Even the way people move through the precinct was shaped by observing the movement of animals through the land, movement that has occurred for millennia. Instead of treating landscape as backdrop, we proposed that the architecture emerge from it, with flowing ground planes and restorative ecological planting shaping how people move, gather, and learn.

The use of rammed earth and flowing organic forms creates a strong connection to nature. What informed your material and form choices, and how do they embody cultural reverence?

Material and form choices to us were central to creating a sense of cultural reverence. Rammed earth for example was chosen for its direct connection to the existing ground as it carries the colour, texture, and permanence of Country. The canopy was designed to be light and ephemeral with organic curves evoking the wings of the wedge-tailed eagle, the scales of Bogong moths, or the stitching of a possum-skin cloak — however the user wants to interpret.

Natural timbers, local stone, and a palette of contextual tones echo the limestone plains and surrounding hills. These choices were also designed to shape how people feel, reminding visitors that Ngurra was not meant to be an imposed monument, but a place born of the land, shaped by its materials, and reflective of its stories.

How do you see Ngurra contributing to Australia’s broader reconciliation journey, both symbolically and in practical terms?

We saw this as an important and rare opportunity to make a genuine difference to First Nations Peoples across the continent. Ngurra was to be a cultural intervention in the national narrative, asserting that First Nations culture belongs at the very heart of Australian democracy and identity. The project restored visibility and prominence to stories that have been long silenced, and it provided a space for truth-telling, ceremony, education, and cultural exchange.

Practically, it created opportunities for repatriation of Ancestors, for First Nations-led education programs, for public engagement with Indigenous knowledge systems, and for ongoing ecological restoration. This openness made Ngurra a place where reconciliation is practiced daily through learning, dialogue, and connection. It aimed to transform reconciliation from a political aspiration into a lived experience, embedded in the nation’s most visible civic spaces.

How were First Nations voices and perspectives embedded into the design process to ensure authenticity and respect?

First Nations voices were at the centre of the process from the beginning and Djinjama guided the design team through a methodology called Sensing Country, a practice of listening, observing, and attuning to the messages of land, water, and sky.

Our proposal was for Elders and cultural Knowledge Holders to inform decisions about orientation, materials, and ceremonial protocols and rather than treating Indigenous consultation as a “stage” in the design process, this was a continuous, iterative practice.

Our resulting proposal was a precinct where First Nations knowledge was structurally embedded in how the place functions and feels. For example, ceremonial fire and water were integrated into the public realm and spaces were scaled for both public festivals and private cultural practices.

It created cultural safety for First Nations peoples who can see themselves reflected in the architecture, feel welcomed by its forms, and know their stories are carried in the fabric of the design.

Ngurra sits within the Parliamentary Triangle. How does the precinct engage in dialogue with its surrounding national institutions and civic architecture?

A precinct of national significance demands a location to match and Ngurra’s location centred within the Parliamentary Triangle was both symbolic and strategic. It engaged in dialogue with the nation’s civic institutions like Parliament House, the National Gallery and the High Court, through contrast and complement. Where colonial architecture is rigid, axial, and monumental, our design for Ngurra was fluid, organic, and porous.

Its presence rebalanced the landscape of power, reminding visitors that First Nations stories predate and exceed the colonial order. The National Resting Place, deliberately off the Griffin land axis, was located to symbolically resist the colonial order imposed on Canberra’s geometry, and instead asserting sovereignty through spatial positioning.

At the same time, the precinct was carefully calibrated to preserve view corridors and harmonise with existing heritage values. Our design approach wasn’t confrontational but conversational; inviting dialogue, creating balance, and enriching the nation’s symbolic landscape.

With international recognition, how do you see Ngurra influencing global conversations about architecture, cultural identity and reconciliation?

We would like to think any international recognition for Ngurra establishes it within a growing global conversation about decolonising architecture and centring Indigenous knowledge systems in the built environment. At a time when nations worldwide are grappling with histories of colonisation and the need for reconciliation, Ngurra offered a compelling model where cultural voices shaped not only aesthetics but the entire logic of the project.

Ngurra demonstrated that architecture can be more than iconic; it can be healing infrastructure, binding communities, ecologies, and histories together. On the wider stage, it showed that Australia could perhaps lead the conversation around how architecture can support reconciliation, truth-telling, and cultural resurgence.

Its lessons extend beyond design: it challenged other nations to consider whose voices shape the symbols they build and whose stories their cities tell, and we very much hope our design concept and proposition contributes to the ongoing dialogue and development of the cultural precinct.

Renders : Ngurra / WAX

Clémence Carayol

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