A Resting Place In Wukalina: Krakani Lumi

Designed over a number of years by the award-winning Hobart firm, the wukalina project was developed in close conversation with the indigenous owners of the land (Tasmania’s palawa people), and the Aboriginal Land Council. The camp sits at the northern end of the spectacular Bay of Fires and serves as a stop-over point for a four-day tour. The wukalina walk is an Aboriginal owned and operated guided walk that takes visitors around the larapuna and wukalina areas. It is designed as a cultural experience where walkers will experience the landscape through the culture and history of the palawa people.

The site is approached from the sand dunes of a nearby beach, and through the coastal scrub is not visible until you have arrived — the structures of krakani lumi are cradled by surrounding banksia marginata. The resting place, as its name translates, offers both a communal site for gathering and a series of pavilions that act as sleeping quarters for the walkers. Drawing inspiration from the half-dome forms of ancient Tasmanian Aboriginal shelters, the insides of the structures offer curved walls. Their exteriors clad in charred Tasmanian timber, causing them to melt into the dark bushland that surrounds them. The buildings themselves have been designed to minimize impact to native flora and fauna: airlifted into position to prevent damage of the area and built with small hollows within the wall cavities to allow occupation by local birds and marsupials.