Buchanan Park and Anzac Memorial

Surrounded by peaceful gardens, the Buchanan Park ANZAC Memorial is designed as a place of learning and quiet reflection. Through form, light, and material, it invites visitors to engage with Australia’s military past, honour those who served, and experience the weight and meaning of collective memory in a contemporary civic space.

Design inspiration
Placemaking beacons
Considerate and respectful material palette

At the heart of the memorial, a tall glass panel inscribed with the Ode aligns with the rising sun on ANZAC Day. As light moves across the site, it casts a progressive shadow over the curved concrete walls that trace a chronology of key Australian military campaigns. Bronze emblems, etched glass, and formed lettering create a layered and tactile connection to history.

Light and shadow creates an memorable and emotive placemaking intervention
Bronze emblems, etched glass, and formed lettering create a layered and tactile connection to history
Tactile placemaking intervention

Working in close collaboration with the project’s landscape architect, a Vietnam veteran, a strong design vision emerged. Amid the surrounding trees the memorial’s vertical elements display the names and colour badges of the nation’s key military campaigns and highlight their global reach. The tops of the tall placemaking totems become brightly illuminated once the sun sets, as though holding a coloured candle of remembrance into the night.

Glowing placemaking beacons are like a candle of remembrance
The tops of the placemaking totems are inspired by military medals
Military medal design inspiration for three of the placemaking totems

Image credits: Angus Martin, Dotdash