Our commitment to revitalising our heritage rail infrastructure
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Australia’s earliest buildings and places were born out of our transport infrastructure. Railway buildings and structures were amongst the earliest state owned infrastructure driving economic development and immigration to regional areas. Communities within a reasonable distance of a railway line benefited once it had opened and they were and continue to be important heritage places.
Conrad Gargett’s heritage team is highly experienced in the process of managing change to heritage infrastructure places to ensure that the significance of a place is retained while enabling change for new uses and upgrades. The understanding of the history and the assessment of the significance of a place informs the management of change and its associated impacts. This robust process ensures the viability and ongoing use of rail heritage of cultural heritage significance.
^ Newcastle Station Stage 2 Redevelopment and Public Realm
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“The longevity and ongoing use of existing buildings is enormously important to retaining the significance of infrastructure heritage places. Existing heritage buildings often don’t meet current building standards. Finding solutions to complex problems is often one of the most rewarding parts of being an architect. Our team thrives on creating places that not only respect the heritage fabric, but also contribute to the enjoyment of passengers.”
Ben List, Senior Associate
Conrad Gargett has the tools and experience to manage and navigate the process. These tools and services include Conservation Management Plans, master planning of large scale heritage sites with multiple buildings and elements, heritage significance assessments, identifying opportunities and constraints, design to facilitate adaptive reuse, design of new structures and elements within a heritage context to facilitate new use, design for compliance upgrades, managing and mitigating the impacts of changes, heritage impact reports, building fabric condition assessments and documentation for repair of building fabric, colour studies, archival recording and site survey and as builts. In many of our projects we focus on heritage approvals, to allow timely project delivery. To achieve that requires vigorous co-ordination and engagement with the design team and stakeholders.
Our heritage architects provide advice to projects across a broad spectrum of built rail infrastructure elements, including station architecture, heritage tunnel and culvert upgrades, as well as minor upgrade works to station components to remove hazardous materials from sites. We also understand the constraints associated with delivering a balanced response to heritage infrastructure precincts.
Our heritage architects have a long standing relationship with Everick Heritage for archaeological works, often working together to deliver both built heritage and archaeological assessments in the one document.
^ Queensland Rail Toowoomba Range Tunnel Capacity Upgrade
We have a national portfolio of clients including Queensland Rail, Transport for NSW, Brisbane Metro, V/Line Regional Rail, Brisbane City Council and private development clients.
Recent projects include:
- Brisbane Metro Heritage Advisory
- Queensland Rail Tranche 4 Stations Heritage Advisory
- Vline – Bairnsdale Station minor works upgrade and heritage approvals
- Vline – Camperdown Station minor works upgrade and heritage approvals
- Vline – Docklands Station Clock Tower minor works upgrade and heritage approvals
- Southern Cross Station minor works upgrade
- Ballarat Station minor works – and heritage approvals
- Vline Epsom-Eucha Rail Corridor Cultural Heritage Management Plan (Archaeology)
- Vline Warnambool Line to Allensford – Cultural Heritage Management Plan (Archaeology)
- Vline Sunbury – Bendigo Line Animal Strike Fencing – Cultural Heritage Management Plan (Archaeology)
- Vline Beaufort Station Predicative Assessment
- Vline Goornong to Rochester
- Vline Stage 2 Epsom to Echuca Line Speed Upgrade _ Cultural Heritage Management Plan (Archaeology)
- Vline Consent to Damage – South Dynon Rubbish Tip (Archaeology)
- Queensland Rail Toowoomba Range Tunnel Capacity Upgrade
- Maryborough Train Station Adaptive Reuse
- Newcastle Station Stage 2 Redevelopment & Public Realm
- Sydney Trains minor works heritage consultancy
- Clem 7 Tunnel – Heritage Consultancy
- Airport Link and Northern Busway Project
- Townsville North Rail Yards masterplan
With clear vision and a detailed understanding of the process required, Conrad Gargett brings new life to places of rail heritage significance.
