Yarralumla Conference Centre

The project is the adaptive reuse of the original 1955 St Peter Chanel Catholic Primary School, for the new Catholic Conference Centre (Rheinberger Center), at Yarralumla, ACT. Constructed during a post-war period of building materials shortages, this was a simple, heavy, low-cost building. An early feasibility study showed that demolishing the old building to construct a new conference room would be prohibitively expensive. Instead, a refurbishment on a strict budget was carried out. The building is not heritage listed, but its refurbishment capitalises on the age of the building, by extending the original timber joinery and by using materials sympathetic to the original character. An ugly rear addition was converted into a new entry with a commercial-style foyer.