Location: ///shorts.finger.entry
35°18.2301’S, 149°5.70282’E

Out for a walk today and came upon this old heritage listed building. The grounds are being meticulously maintained. The building itself is neglected and deserted. Such a shame.

This was the Australian Forestry School. Opened in 1927, the building originally comprised two lecture theatres, a library, teaching laboratory and museum. It hosted students from Australia, New Zealand and Asia all engaged in “forestry science and sustainable forrest management”. The school was moved to the Australian National University in 1965.

Since then the building has been occupied by various CSIRO groups, until it was sold in 2002. And now there seems to be some issues between the current owners development plans and local concerns over its heritage protection (you can read more about this here).

And so here it sadly sits. A shell of its former self. Squinting through the windows of the main door I can see bespoke tiled timber flooring and the slightest glimpse of some carved ceiling work, again in wood. Old charts and graphs of maximum and minimum local temperatures pinned to a notice board just inside the door.

Yet another beautiful historical building with so much potential that sits empty awaiting its capital generating fate.
Let’s hope that it does not become a block of banal, high-density, high-end units.