It has been termed 'an ark with a novel inside', the visitor centre is half rough hewn local timber half glass and steel, housing a rainforest in which sits one of the more bizarre and engaging exhibitions ever to be seen in Australia. Amidst straggling Huon pines and man ferns can be found an aboriginal cave replete with partly excavated kitchen sink, a suburban lounge-room full of 1970's artefacts and a flooded out timber and iron railway bridge.

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The Centre's telling of stories of south west Tasmania has met with enthusiastic response from visitors and drawn praise from critics, local and international. 'It breaks every rule in interpretation' one expert has said. Indeed it does, and it works the better for it. It challenges and provokes, to make visitors rethink what they normally take for granted. It, too became the best public building constructed in this state in a triennium; especially significant considering its challenging nature.

The centre featured in the prestigious British journal, Architecture Review, in an edition devoted to new museums and interpretative centres around the world.