Northern Memorial Park Depot is a two-storey mass-timber operations hub for the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT) which challenges the conventional typology of a Depot by providing a beautiful workplace for people who work in emotionally challenging roles, dealing daily with grief and loss.

Timber’s natural warmth and connection to nature contribute to a biophilic design, improve acoustics in an industrial setting and enhance overall staff well-being. Reflecting the client core values to design infrastructure for longevity and sustainability.

Rethinking the traditional industrial truss, 20 unique glulam timber trusses span up to 35 meters across ground floor garage, workshops, and storage rooms. Lifting incrementally the trusses rise to 6m high intersecting with first-floor offices, lunchroom and meeting spaces housed between the lower and upper chords. CLT walkways linking interstitial collaboration zones creating dynamic visual and spatial connections throughout.

Spatial connections between levels are centred around the north facing CLT amphitheatre stair, which provides social spaces for training, lunchbreaks, and watercooler chats between GMCT’s horticulture, burial, and operations teams.

Porosity in the screen façade subtly reveals the timber structure behind, punctured openings intersected by timber trusses, offering light-filled framed views that connect the interior to the treed landscape beyond.

Photography by Peter Bennetts