A timber “cathedral” of NSW hardwood columns, rising into a tiered canopy above rows of log benches, is the signature space of the world’s first wild koala breeding centre. Guulabaa, or Place of Koala in the Gathang language of the Biripi people, was built almost entirely from local hardwood and raised in a working state forest as a direct answer to the Black Summer bushfires.
The 25-hectare site breeds koalas for release into the wild, as part of a recovery programme led by Koala Conservation Australia. Its elevated timber decks link a cafe and gallery run by the Bunyah Local Aboriginal Land Council to the rest of the visitor experience.
Its design has drawn international recognition, from the 2025 Urban Land Institute Asia Pacific Awards for Excellence in Hong Kong to a shortlisting in last year’s World Architecture Festival. Guulabaa broke ground in Cowarra State Forest on the NSW Mid North Coast in early 2023, with funding from the Australian and NSW Governments, and reached completion in December 2024.
The hub is a 90 per cent timber structure, with four main decks of mass timber supported on a braced pole system, and traditional framing retained for the stairs, gallery and roofs. Bridge-ply LVL decking spans pairs of large LVL and Stringybark beams, while unseasoned hardwood poles, bolted to concrete foundations with steel brackets, carry the decks clear of the ground.
Each deck was prefabricated off-site under a Design for Manufacturing and Assembly process, then craned into position to limit disturbance to the working forest around it. Even the steel bracing between the poles was set, the award’s entry notes, “to minimise climbing hazards” and keep the ground beneath the decks clear.
The timber came from eight local hardwood businesses — Ironwood, Coffs Harbour Hardwoods, Hurford Hardwood, Pentarch Forestry, Machins Sawmilling, Hayden Timbers, Weathertex and Big River Group — a local supply chain that, the entry says, “helped revitalise the regional industry.” Weathertex also supplied the cladding, described in the entry as a carbon-positive board made from sawmill waste.
Central to the design was fire-resistant Tallowwood, a native hardwood that, the awards entry argues, proved viable where “sustainable native timber construction was previously considered impossible”. Traditional First Nations cool-burning practices were written into the site’s fire management, drawing on Indigenous knowledge held by the Bunyah Local Aboriginal Land Council.
The cathedral also serves as the site for cultural awareness training, integrating First Nations culture into the visitor experience. Its awards entry argues that Guulabaa has set “a new precedent for safe, climate-adaptive architecture in bushfire-prone regions”.
Designed by global architecture firm Gensler, with structural engineering by TTW and construction by F & SJ Maione, the hub was shaped in collaboration with Forestry Corporation NSW and the Bunyah Local Aboriginal Land Council. “Guulabaa challenged us to rethink what regenerative architecture should be,” said Ken McBryde, then Design Director at Gensler Australia.
Speaking to the media last year, McBryde said the project was less about a bold architectural statement than about designing with care and respect for Country, crediting the result to long-term thinking shared across the project team and First Nations knowledge holders. It was TTW that entered Guulabaa in the Public Building category of last year’s Australian Timber Design Awards, and projects of its kind help explain a change in this year’s programme.
For the first time, architects, engineers and builders are encouraged to identify the source of their timber, tracing it to the forest region and, in many cases, the sawmill. That is according to awards organiser Kylan Low, who said more than 4,000 Australian projects have entered the awards since 2000. The programme is run by the Timber Development Association and supported by Forest and Wood Products Australia and WoodSolutions.
“Behind every winning project is a supply chain story that begins in the forest,” Low said.
Early-bird entries for the 27th awards close at 7 pm this Friday, 29 May, with the final submission deadline set for July 3.
“For the first time in its 27-year history, the Australian Timber Design Awards is tracking timber back to its forest region of origin, and in many cases, the sawmill,” Low said. “It’s a milestone for the programme and a powerful statement about the transparency and traceability our industry can offer.”
