Woombah Shelter

Off the back of the Placemaking Clarence Valley program we led for Fire to Flourish, Woombah residents secured $200,000 to deliver an all-weather community shelter for meetings, workshops and cultural events. Following the grant award, we worked closely with the Woombah Residents Association (WRA) to develop the design, beginning with a placemaking workshop to explore site options and translate ideas through hands-on model making. Several rounds of design refinement and community feedback followed, leading to a finalised proposal.

The Woombah Shelter transforms community priorities into durable civic infrastructure that supports everyday use and a pre-gathering point during local emergencies. The shelter responds to Woombah’s climate, landscape and patterns of communal life. Resident input directly informed the scale, layout and material choices to ensure flexibility across a range of uses and low levels of maintenance across the seasons.

The design features a robust roof, open edges and integrated screening to provide shade, weather protection and strong visual connections to the surrounding landscape. A generous concrete slab and open internal space supports gatherings large and small, whilst also providing a safe, accessible meeting point during extreme weather events. A community-led rain garden will surround the shelter ensuring run off is sustainably managed whilst introducing more native vegetation to the public park.