Hut 37

A passion for stories and history led to the restoration of Hut-37.

Over sixty Huts spaced six metres apart were erected in 1940, now Hut-37 is the remnant of the ‘Parap Military Camp 118’. The cohesive post-war residents referred to Parap Camp as ‘Rusty Valley’ during the long housing crisis, at which time Hut-37 housed the ‘Christodoulou grocery store’, hub of the community.

The brief was successfully achieved by providing room for offices and interpretive centre. The small annex contains walled spaces of meeting room, kitchenette, and bathrooms to keep the hut volume unobstructed.

The exposed internal ‘Comet Building System’ steel frame and fenestration are restored; reclad in carefully crafted custom galvanised corrugated iron sandwich panels, leaving a WWII technical example of Australian ingenuity with appropriate climatic features of wide eaves and shutter windows.

Who would have thought a tin shed could be adaptively reused as an energy efficient office?