Cairns Neighbourhood Centre

Cairns Neighbourhood Centre awarded in the 2025 Regional Architecture Awards, shortlisted for the State Colorbond Award and Sustainability Award.

Regional Jury Citation

The Cairns Neighbourhood Centre thoughtfully addresses a complex brief and challenging site conditions. Its well-planned, flexible spaces and simple geometric forms achieve a domestic scale that connects comfortably with the surrounding residential area. The home-like atmosphere, natural light, and neutral material palette foster a calming and safe environment for both the community and staff. The design carefully balances the relationship between multi-purpose activity spaces and private support areas, encouraging social interaction while ensuring dignified access to essential services for all.

As principle consultant and architect, JMC designed and documented the replacement neighbourhood centre in Manunda through stakeholder engagement and collaboration with a team of experienced specialist sub consultants.

The new centre furnishes key objectives for the client operation and its community:

• It provides improvement of wellbeing, resilience and safety through the considered selection of sustainable materials and finishes.
• Encouragement through adaptability of spaces that facilitate a client-centric hub from which diverse human services, programs and activities can be facilitated.
• Through considered planning outdoor and indoor spaces are secure but integrated, improving liveability, inclusion and cohesion by providing the community with space for delivering and accessing services, holding and attending formal and informal meetings, and running and attending courses, programs and activities in a variety of spaces.
• Provision of meeting spaces for community groups during office hours and after hours increase the efficiency of human service provision via shared infrastructure which enhances economic sustainability and collaboration; and – attract more services, groups and activities through the provision of appropriate facilities for casual or permanent tenancy and/or hourly or daily hire.
• Our landscape design incorporates edible indigenous plants and an arbour designed with natural materials and forms, yarning circle and meeting place addressing the street.

Key client objectives were carefully considered through the design stages:

• Provide a communal gathering space that fosters a sense of belonging, security and safety for its many users.
• Adaptive flexible / multi-functional spaces to enable maximum utilisation as needs require.
• Versatile functionality with cost efficient solutions.
• Revitalise from the current outdated neighbourhood centre to better represent a modern contemporary facility.