In late 2014, Wollongong City Council embarked on a masterplanning exercise for 2 of its key interment sites, Wollongong Lawn Cemetery in Kembla Grange and Wollongong Memorial Gardens in Berkeley. Its aim was to ascertain growth opportunities, maximise the use of the location and identify areas for improvements whilst providing a financial and environmentally sustainable operation. Our practice put together a team of sub-consultants including Changing Places (operations advice), RSM Bird Cameron (Financial modelling), IGNITE (Architects), Triaxial Consulting (Engineers) and Biosis (Ecologists).
The tasks:

• Analyse both the operations and the physical site
• Conduct stakeholder’s consultation
• Create a vision for both sites
• Present recommendations for operational, landscape and building issues
• Prepare a staging plan for the implementation of the above recommendations
• Prepare a financial model for selected implementation scenarios. The project was delivered over a period of 6 months.