Containment Building and Auxiallry Buildings

Provenance

Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A roof-level view at HIFAR, Lucas Heights, looking across the curved glass wall of the auxiliary plant room below. The brick building to the right was built in the 1990s and supplied power to the facility through a dedicated cable penetration point. This roof level was reached mainly for maintenance work such as changing lights, and the exterior is still used for working-at-heights training.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD

Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

Containment Building and Auxiallry Buildings at ANSTO HIFAR, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Containment Building and Auxiallry Buildings at ANSTO HIFAR, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Containment Building and Auxiallry Buildings at ANSTO HIFAR, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Containment Building and Auxiallry Buildings
Series: ANSTO HIFAR
Catalogue: AHF-041
Process: Giclée
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 mm
Location: Lucas Heights, New South Wales, Australia
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Lucas Heights, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The HIFAR containment building stands at the centre of the photograph, its cylindrical white shell rising from the Lucas Heights campus. A curved glass wall fronts the auxiliary plant room at one side, holding compressors, pumps, and chillers that supported reactor operations. A brick power supply building from the 1990s stands at right. The grounds around the buildings are concrete, kerbing, and low planting.

HIFAR was designed by consulting architects Stephenson and Turner of Sydney and built by Hutcherson Bros. The reactor itself was supplied by Head Wrightson Processes Ltd of Stockton-on-Tees, UK, under a contract awarded on 7 July 1955 for £A937,500. Construction began at the 70-hectare Lucas Heights site in November 1955. The reactor went critical on 26 January 1958, and the Research Establishment was formally opened by Prime Minister Robert Menzies on 18 April 1958.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A large white cylindrical containment building rises above a curved glass-walled auxiliary plant room at ground level. Cracked asphalt spreads across the forecourt. Yellow bollards mark vehicle paths. To the left, metal-clad service buildings with corrugated sheeting stand two storeys high. A brick structure on the right shows black-and-yellow hazard striping on its bollards. Steel ladders and safety railings climb the containment vessel. Overcast sky presses low.

Brett Patman

The series

ANSTO HIFAR

2022 · 49 photographs

At 11:15 pm on Sunday 26 January 1958, Australia Day, the High Flux Australian Reactor went critical for the first time with 11 of 25 fuel elements loaded. The men in the control room had come from Oak Ridge, Chalk River and Harwell. HIFAR was Australia's first nuclear reactor.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.