Pinnacles Desert Discovery Centre inspires connection with this vast, dynamic landscape

Located 250km north of Perth in Nambung National Park, the Pinnacles is made of thousands of protruding limestone formations spread over a vast dunal landscape, a dynamic and ever-changing scene. The design principle for the desert discovery centre is embedded in the mutable narrative of the landscape.

The Pinnacles Desert Discovery Centre is consciously contradictory, nonheroic and embedded into a series of larger scale forms. The evocative gesture of ritual burning introduces this specific practice into contemporary Australian architecture. The burning and the burnt remains, are integral to the scheme and highlight the relationship between fire, the land and its inhabitants.

The centre is another element of the landscape, specifically ‘of the place’, with the podium walls constructed in limestone. The timber façade is a reference to the nearby grove of vanishing tuarts, disappearing under a shifting sand dune.

The planting interventions include species endemic to the region. During the construction process the vertical timber elements were deliberately set on fire enabling the architecture to become a registration of the role of fire in the landscape.

The Pinnacles Desert Discover Centre continues to attract local and international visitors and inspire them to appreciate this unique landscape.