Mount Druitt sits in one of Sydney’s fastest growing and most multicultural pockets, part of a city where more than 180 languages are spoken and community is how daily life gets done. The services people rely on sit scattered across the town centre in separate buildings on separate leases. The Salvation Army asked for somewhere the community could gather, and somewhere its own services could work side by side rather than across town from one another. The Salvos call this collective impact. The site sits inside Blacktown City Council’s wider masterplan for the Mount Druitt town centre, a programme of new public space, pedestrian and cycle links, an upgraded library and community hub, a renovated aquatic centre, and a First Nations Cultural Hub across the road, all working towards the Our Blacktown 2041 vision.

A gabion base grounds the building to its site and rises into five storeys of podium. Inside sits the kind of social infrastructure a town centre usually spreads across separate addresses: a 296-seat multi-purpose auditorium, dance studios, a cafe, counselling rooms, and health, welfare and education services. The building has also been designed to incorporate social housing for vulnerable people, in a great location with access to multiple community support services, if additional funding can be secured.

A perforated metal veil wraps the podium, filtering daylight through the day, then letting the building glow out from within after dark. Walk the plaza and the building only half reveals itself, enough to draw the neighbourhood in. Culture and care share a foundation here, and a front door.