Canberra’s brickworks are firing up for a remarkable second life
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After decades behind a fence, the historic Yarralumla Brickworks is being carefully restored by DOMA Group as the centrepiece of an ambitious new neighbourhood.
For generations, the towering stacks and cavernous kilns of the Yarralumla Brickworks have stood as reminders of the industry that helped build Canberra.
Soon, the gates will open on a very different future with expressions of interest being taken for five bespoke homes and the release of 31 townhomes to a private VIP list. Meanwhile, a new display suite will open onsite next month through private appointments.
DOMA Group is transforming the 16-hectare site into a new residential, hospitality and wellness precinct, while retaining the brickworks’ extraordinary industrial heart. The old buildings are not being treated as decorative relics but shaping what the development will become.
The townhomes being constructed
Inside structures once used to fire Canberra’s bricks, visitors will find a bathhouse, recovery facilities, a day spa and skin clinic. Other heritage spaces are planned for restaurants, bars, cafés, offices and gathering places. Around them will sit new homes, landscaped public areas and a park where the quarry formally sat.
The romance of the vision belies the scale of the work. While some walls and arches have survived since construction in 1913, bringing them into public use has required extensive structural intervention. Sections have been stabilised, reinforced and, where deterioration was too severe, carefully rebuilt.
Original archways are being reset. Historic steel cladding has been removed so compliant walls can be constructed, then reapplied to preserve the industrial character. Timber roof trusses have been craned away for repair before their return. Underground flues, once used to draw heat and smoke from the kilns towards their stacks, have also had to be protected.
From historic kilns to future luxury spa treatment rooms
It is painstaking work, but it reveals the ingenuity of the original brickmakers who spent long days moulding, firing and eventually transporting enough bricks to build the capital.
Doma Group Managing Director Jure Domazet said “It’s a unique site, not just in Canberra, but also Australia. So we were very attracted to it from the outset. It’s up to us as custodians of this site now to create something which is really quite special and leans into that industrial heritage. It’s very hard to create these sorts of things from scratch, so it’s an incredible opportunity and one that I don’t know that we would ever come across again.”
Ensuring the development protects the historic integrity of the site has taken years of intricate planning, mountains of documentation and added considerable costs to the project. But for Jure, it was an opportunity to create something unique, by local and international standards.
“The history of the site is very important for Canberra. It actually contains some of the oldest buildings in Canberra and the genesis of a lot of the buildings in Canberra starts at the brickworks with the bricks that were formed there. For us there’s a special connection as Canberra locals – there is a special connection with the Canberra red, the bricks which were used to build the original Parliament House and so many of the heritage homes across the city.”
Perhaps the most striking transformation will take place within the kilns themselves. A series of intimate brick chambers are intended to become treatment rooms for the day spa, turning spaces once defined by extreme heat into quiet places of recovery.
One side of the wellness precinct is planned for wet recovery, including magnesium pools, cold plunges and saunas. The other will focus on dry recovery, with proposed facilities such as hyperbaric and cryotherapy chambers and infrared day beds. A gym, yoga and Pilates spaces, heated outdoor pools, tennis and padel facilities will complete the broader lifestyle offering.
Elsewhere, long kiln halls are being prepared for hospitality and what is destined to become one of the city’s most iconic dining rooms – think a cavernous, long bricked arch. New kitchens and service areas will sit in contemporary additions so the historic interiors can remain open and expressive. The plans envisage restaurants, a wine bar, casual dining and potentially a bakery or pizza offering, all threaded through pedestrian courtyards and landscaped spaces.
The contrast is part of the appeal. Rough brick, weathered steel and monumental stacks will meet glass, landscaping and contemporary interiors, with the new work designed to support rather than imitate the old.
The wider development is expected to include a mix of freestanding homes, townhouses and low-rise apartments, with apartment buildings limited to three storeys. DOMA Group is preparing an initial release of 31 townhomes to a private VIP list, while expressions of interest are being taken for five bespoke homes.
A display suite within one of the restored buildings is due to open to the public next month, introducing visitors to the precinct through physical and digital models, while offering a first close look at the restored fabric.
Parts of the hospitality and wellness offering are slated to open towards the end of 2027, with residents expected to begin arriving in 2028. The program remains subject to construction progress and market conditions.
There is a pleasing symmetry to the brickworks’ next chapter, where a place that once supplied the material for a growing capital will again help shape how Canberra lives. This time, its kilns will not be hidden behind fences but will become rooms to gather in, recover in, dine in and explore.
You can read more about the Brickworks development here.
