Eastern Kuku Yalanjiwarra Culture & Tourism Hub

The EKY Culture and Tourism Hub will provide a cultural flavour currently not clearly present in Cape Tribulation. The centre will provide a gateway to cultural experiences in the Daintree.

“The centre should facilitate a way of being that makes you feel a special connection to Country.”

The Architectural response is directed from the feeling of moving through the forest, from compression and the forest canopy, climbing the building onto elevation. A juxtaposition of bright and dark spaces with varying quantities of dappled light throughout the internal and external spaces create a distilled journey for the visitor.

The Concept Developing from the canopy, water and colour. The internal and external soffits represent the richness of the forest, with a combination timber framing and skylights representing the forest canopy and allowing controlled light into the building and circulation areas.

Water cascading from the roof can be captured or fall into planters on either side of the building.

Colour will be important with these two exceptional colours of the cassowary myrtle-green and cassowary plum (purple blue). While the plum is poisonous for humans, it provides sustenance for cassowary and the architecture responds to this by interrogating the relationship of bama to landscape with flashes of these colours to be represented through the spaces.