Architecture

Under One Roof; Karratha Now, Then? and When.

As a result of the mining boom, Karratha currently hosts a large transient population, largely constituted of young adult males. These workers are typically housed in camps on the town’s outskirts, creating a number of social problems associated with isolation and disposable incomes. The project proposes to integrate these workers into the broader community through a mixed use development in the town centre that binds residential and civic uses under a single dynamic roof. As the mining reaches its inevitable end, the transient accommodation can be removed, leaving the community programme to expand into the void left behind, in view of creating a vital civic heart that supports Karratha's proposed role as a regional centre. The architectural language of the project draws upon a unique formal vernacular that emerged in Karratha in the late 1970's as a response to harsh climatic conditions.