Neeson Murcutt + Neille

Kamay Botany Bay National Park Masterplan

2019 AIA NSW Reconciliation Prize – Commendation – with Sue Barnsley Design and Freeman Ryan Design

The Kamay Botany Bay National Park is a magnificent headland site that bounds the wide mouth of Botany Bay. The site is arguably the most significant site in Australia for the contact story in the context of a contemporary nation. With all the changes that have transformed this landscape – the ring of suburbia, the pixelated hillside of the cemetery, the airport and the container terminal with the constant flux of tankers – it is still possible to imagine this Country when Cook landed in 1770 and in the millennia before. The contact story, a moment in time, casts focus on big issues looking back and projecting forward, of culture – indigenous, colonial, multicultural – and place – geology, ecology, use and management. Design can neither heal the impact of 250 years of occupation, but it can provide a platform for dialogue and interpretation.