Quilpie Shire Council successfully gained funding to upgrade the Eromanga Natural History Museum. Plans included extra building wings in order to separate the displays from the research and working areas of the museum. It was anticipated that this upgrade would attract more visitors, which meant the need for a formal carpark that could accommodate cars, buses, caravans and motor homes.
GenEng Solutions was contracted under Local Buy to deliver the carpark design for this upgrade.
Approach
Due to the museum’s remote location, the GenEng team initially liaised with Council and the architects via email and online meetings. However, as the project progressed, GenEng designers undertook a site inspection and spent time discussing design ideas with museum staff, in particular to understand the drainage requirements.
It was also important to liaise with the architect in order to accommodate future plans for expansion and provide connections between the carpark and new and existing buildings.
CHALLENGES
The museum is located in channel country, an area of desert floodplains in a network of braided channels. Although rain is infrequent, sudden and intense rain events result in water flowing quickly across the parched soil. The museum staff also wanted to ensure that rainwater was not diverted away from a stand of trees that were an important part of the museum landscape and outlook from the new building. This meant that considerable attention was directed towards drainage in the design. Our focus was on the vertical geometry of the carpark to ensure that water flowed where it was required.
As part of the design process, we also needed to consider construction requirements and practices, as environmental constraints to preserve the natural desert landscape, meant that absolutely no machinery or disturbance of ground north of the existing road to the museum was allowed.
Finally, since many of the museum’s visitors were caravaners, it was important for us to develop turning templates to ensure that drivers could manoeuvre large vehicles through the carpark.
OUTCOME
Our design team delivered plans for a carpark (that when seen from the air, has the shape of a dinosaur’s head) with drive-through caravan parking so that caravanners can drive straight through instead of having to reverse and manoeuvre their vehicles. This has since been successfully constructed offering patrons of the Eromanga Natural History Museum better access.