Cascades Female Factory

The Cascades Female Factory, part of the Australian Convict Sites World Heritage Property, plays an important part in the history of female convicts in Australia.

Our approach to the design of the new History and Interpretation Centre is all about storytelling – stories of over 8000 women and children who were interred at Cascades.

Our design strategy was multi-layered to interpret the journeys, spatial experiences and confined accommodation of the convict women. The reflective building skin is overlaid with historic landscape paintings by colonial artists John Skinner Prout and Robert Beauchamp which simultaneously reflect the enclosing sandstone yard walls – merging past and present and placing the visitor within the story of this significant place.