2015 - Areyonga communities in the Northern Territory

Areyonga General Purpose Pavilion

Location: Areyonga, Central Australia
Completed: April 2015 on time and on budget

The Areyonga Community is nestled into the Western MacDonnell Ranges about three hours drive from Alice Springs. The local shop is one of the key meeting places in Areyonga and the community asked that a pavilion be located near the store on the banks of the riverbed.

As the finishing touches were being completed at the taxi/bus shelter at the Amoonguna Community in April 2015 a team of six Bower Studio students and three staff assisted the MacDonnell Regional Council’s Civil Works team to construct the Areyonga pavilion and helped design and build the associated furniture and landscaping. The local Civil Works team complimented the finished pavilion with car parking bollards and further landscaping.

A huge flat-topped rock was gathered from a riverbed was gathered with the front-end loader and relocated within the pavilion for use as a table and seating. The children from the local primary school put the finishing touches by helping design and paint the seats within the pavilion. They now feel a well-deserved sense of ownership over the pavilion.

The architecture students participating in this project have gone on to design education facilities as well as studio and retail spaces for the local artists. Not only are their designs culturally appropriate and based on their consultations with the community they are also designed to be economically and environmentally sustainable.