Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum

Winton, Central West Queensland, 2008-12

A tiny speck of a building sited on a remote mesa plateau, the museum if the brainchild of a local grazier, David Elliott, who discovered dinosaur bones on his vast grassland property over a decade ago. Wanting to re-assemble and conserve dinosaur skeletons insitu (rather than having to transfer them elsewhere), he saw the museum as an opportunity to help the local economy through cultural tourism and volunteering. The building is fabricated from earth and concrete tilt-up walls poured on the mesa, and imprinted with ground textures using latex material employed to cradle the fragile bone fossils. The idea of the architecture was for the museum to appear like a chameleon basking on a cliff edge, shifting in impression with daylight changes.

Client

Australian Age of Dinosaurs Ltd

Attribution

Michael Rayner was involved in the design of Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum when working at Cox Architecture t/a Cox Rayner.

Project Awards

AIA Queensland State Award for Public Architecture 2013 • CIA Kevin Cavanagh Medal for Excellence in Concrete 2013

Photography

Christopher Frederick Jones