St Mary’s Presentation Convent, Lismore

Presentation Convent Lismore is a heritage building located adjacent to St Carthage’s Cathedral on Dawson Street. It was originally St Mary’s convent and was in use by the Presentation Sisters until 2005.

Since the nuns left the convent building, it has been used by the school as additional teaching space.

The building was being refurbished and adapted to house the Lismore Diocese Catholic Education Office and will contain office areas, seminar rooms, and the communications hub.

The design required that significant heritage features of the building be retained, including the two chapels, the ground floor ceiling and the central staircase.  This required ingenuity when designing the new services.

In addition to the internal works, works external to the building included new parking areas, an upgraded entry and a courtyard area for staff gatherings.

Woolacotts was responsible for civil and hydraulic aspects of the project.

Integrating a modern fire hydrant system into a heritage listed building was our challenge faced by Woolacotts hydraulic team. This require ingenuity and close collaboration with the project architect and other team members another challenge was determining the location of existing pipes, assessing could be retained and determine suitably rants into and through this heritage.

The steeply sloping are in front of the building created another challenge for Woolacotts, with the space needed for a driveway and parking/ loading zones. This of retaining walls, flat parking areas and ramps to connect the front entry to be side entry at the level below. We were able to utilize these structures to form a cabinet for the fire hydrant booster required by the hydrant engineer.