The project aimed to develop a new home for the Australian Islamic Mission as well as a complex of structures to facilitate study and religious worship for Muslim members of the local community. The property was built in two stages, with Stage 1 consisting of the construction of a Mosque that can accommodate 300 worshippers and Stage 2 consisting of community buildings.

The buildings are situated around a quadrangle that is partially open on one side, giving students and community members an internal view while also providing privacy. This arrangement generates two adjacent but different courtyards, allowing the client brief to segregate the principal daily operations. The first of the two courtyards, which is more open to the public, is directly accessible from the street and borders the Mosque. For attendees entering and exiting the Mosque, this courtyard serves primarily as an orientation and congregation place. The second courtyard, which is entered through but physically separate from the first, is larger and more private.

The architectural expression of the Mosque is intentionally separate and distant from the remainder of the future community buildings. Entry to the Mosque is via the first courtyard, with male and female worshippers separating to perform ablutions, or ‘wudu’ before prayer. Male worshippers diverge right as they approach the Mosque, into the raking triangular form of the male ablutions area at ground level before passing back out below the compressed entry awning which opens out into the main prayer hall.

The sculptural off-form concrete raking ceiling to the Mosque main prayer space references ornamental vaulting of ‘muqarnas’ in traditional Islamic architecture, with each of the 102 off-form concrete ‘muqarnas’ containing a 30mm diameter hole at its centre. Shafts of daylight are drawn into the main prayer space through the ‘muqarnas’, illuminating the space as the sun moves around from dawn prayer through mid-day and mid-afternoon prayer, prior to sunset and evening prayers.