Developed in close collaboration with Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation and landscape architects ASPECT Studios, the new visitor precinct brings together architecture, landscape and ecology as a single experience. Co-design with Eastern Maar has informed the project from masterplan through to detailed design, embedding an understanding of Country as an interconnected system within the architecture, landscape, materials and visitor journey.

The Visitor Experience Centre is conceived as a landform rather than an object in the landscape. Its two connected forms respond to the site’s topography, coastal views and environmental conditions, while the surrounding landscape draws together three pre-settlement Ecological Vegetation Classes — coastal scrub, grassland and woodland. These ecosystems converge around and extend through the architecture, shaping its form and creating a continuous journey from arrival towards the coast.

The wider precinct transforms how visitors experience the Twelve Apostles. New landscaped parking and pedestrian routes lead through the Welcome Garden to the Visitor Experience Centre and onwards to the coastal landscape, replacing a vehicle-dominated arrival with a slower and more considered experience of Country. A publicly accessible rooftop lookout extends the landscape across the building itself.

Regeneration is fundamental to the project. Extensive revegetation restores habitat and strengthens local ecologies, while environmental investigations have directly shaped the building and pathways to minimise disturbance to sensitive areas. Designed to meet Passive House performance and certification standards, the Visitor Experience Centre combines a high-performance envelope with rainwater harvesting, onsite water treatment, photovoltaic generation and a circular approach to materials.