Wilcannia, New South Wales, Australia
The BAAKA Cultural Centre in Wilcannia demonstrates how deep sustainability, heritage and Country-led design can be integrated into a single, coherent architectural response.
Located on Barkandji Country beside the Baaka (Darling River), the project transforms the fire-damaged former Knox & Downs store into a contemporary cultural and community facility, creating both environmental and social value through adaptive reuse.
BAAKA Cultural Centre by Kaunitz Yeung Architecture, won a 2025 Good Design Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design, and Urban Studies.
A central sustainability strategy is the adaptive reuse of the existing historic colonial building. Rather than demolishing and rebuilding, the remaining fabric of the Knox & Downs store was stabilised and incorporated into the new cultural centre.
This approach avoided the large embodied carbon impacts associated with demolition, waste removal and replacement construction, while also retaining a building of deep cultural and social meaning to Wilcannia.
Reuse allowed heritage, memory and sustainability to be achieved in a single architectural move.
The new building elements are formed from single-skin structural rammed earth, made from soil sourced within 10 kilometres of the site.
In a remote town where most materials would normally be trucked hundreds of kilometres, this decision dramatically reduced transport energy and emissions.
Using local earth also avoids the embodied carbon of highly processed materials such as concrete, steel and masonry. The walls are literally made from Country, embedding the place physically, environmentally and culturally into the building.
The single-skin construction is critical to the project’s low-carbon performance. The rammed earth walls are load-bearing, finished and thermally massive in one element.
This removes the need for conventional layered wall systems that rely on steel framing, insulation, plasterboard, vapour barriers and external cladding.
By eliminating these additional materials, the project significantly reduces embodied energy, construction complexity and future maintenance, while delivering a robust and highly durable envelope suited to Wilcannia’s harsh climate.
Landscaping is equally important to the sustainability strategy. The gardens use local endemic and bush-tucker species, which are naturally adapted to the region’s low rainfall, high temperatures and poor soils.
These plantings require minimal irrigation, repair damaged ecological systems and provide habitat for birds and insects.
Beyond environmental benefits, the landscape also supports cultural practices and community use, embedding sustainability into daily life rather than treating it as a purely technical outcome.
Internally, finishes were selected for longevity and low embodied energy. Painted concrete floors provide a hard-wearing, low-maintenance surface capable of withstanding heavy public use in a remote setting.
This avoids the need for vinyl, carpet and other petroleum-based or highly processed floor finishes that have high embodied energy, short lifespans and generate significant waste over time.
Together, these strategies create a building that is sustainable by design rather than by add-on.
By reusing what already exists, building with earth from the site, minimising materials through single-skin construction, restoring the local landscape and selecting durable, low-impact finishes, the BAAKA Cultural Centre demonstrates a powerful model for low-carbon, place-based architecture in remote Australia — one that is deeply connected to Country, community and long-term stewardship.
Project: BAAKA Cultural Centre
Architects: Kaunitz Yeung Architecture
Lead Architects: David Kaunitz, Ka Wai Yeung, and Marni Reti
Landscape Architects: Kaunitz Yeung Architecture
General Contractor: David Payne Construction
Client: Baaka Cultural and Art Centre
Photographers: Brett Boardman
