Cascades Female Factory Historic Site

Architect: John Lee Archer (1828), Yard 4 Designed by Birrelli (2012), history and interpretation centre concept design by Liminal Architecture with Snøhetta (2017), detailed design development (including interiors and exterior finishes), construction documentation and site administration by MCA Architects.

Walls, Memory, Confinement

Set beneath the slopes of kunanyi/Mount Wellington, the World Heritage-listed Cascades Female Factory is a place where architecture, landscape and history come together.

One of the 11 sites that make up the Australian Convict Sites World Heritage Property, the Female Factory tells the stories of the thousands of women and girls who were forcibly transported to Tasmania. Approximately 7,000 of the 25,000 female convicts transported to Australia passed through its gates, where they were compelled to undertake work including spinning, weaving, sewing and laundering.

Today, the site invites us to look beyond the surviving buildings and landscape and consider the lives and experiences of the women who passed through them.

In 2017, an architectural design competition was held for a new History and Interpretation Centre. LIMINAL Architecture, in collaboration with Snøhetta and Rush Wright Associates, developed the winning concept — an integrated architectural and landscape response that explores the powerful contrasts embedded in the site’s history: light and dark, imprisonment and liberty, punishment and reform, threat and opportunity, horror and hope.

Come and explore how contemporary architecture can respond to a place of such profound historical significance, and how design can help us understand, remember and interpret the stories held within a site.

Read more about the Liminal Architecture with Snøhetta concept here.

Detailed design development (including interiors and exterior finishes), construction documentation and site administration by MCA Architects 

Tour: Sat 7 Nov, 10.00am and 12.00pm (bookings required)