Form
The architectural image for the project is a "Crown" on Capital Hill. As such it sits on a solid base of concrete walls clad in pink granite. Standing on the base the galleries are light, delicate, and transparent. The jewels in the "Crown" are the Library, the Clubhouse/Dining Room, the Gateways and the Reception Hall. The roofs of the Chambers will appear above the galleries from various angles.

The important Rooms of Meeting are individually distinguished in the Parliamentary domain. The chambers are on the diagonal axes; the public halls on the central axis, while the party rooms are set in gardens. The Parliamentary street, lined on one side by Committee rooms, runs between the Library and the Clubhouse and is the place where the Parliamentary domain and the Public domain join.

The plan allows a diversity of kinds of meeting and gives expression to the democratic and pluralistic character of Australian society. The various functions of Parliament are identifiable and distinct. The arms of the galleries form a public promenade around the hill on their uppermost level and contain various offices in the Parliamentary domain and in the Public domain there are walks, public facilities, and space for public institutions.

Each gallery arm is terminated by a Ceremonial Gatehouse: one dedicated to the Aboriginal people, the other to the New Settlers. The galleries are buttressed on the outside by the flexible accomodation required for housing members, for executive offices, and to provide space for future expansion. In a way the galleries act as inhabited streets with the repetitive, flexible accomodation on the outside, and the individual and particular meeting rooms and their supporting facilities on the inside.

Some conclusions drawn from preliminary studies were:

• The building should be simple in the sense of singular, easy to orientate oneself in - "a simple idea clearly expressed".
• The building should relate in some visible way to the three major axes which intersect on the centre of the site.
• As it is the head of the Parliamentary Triangle, the new building must be capable of fulfilling the function of giving the Triangle and the buildings within it a new sense of position and purpose. It must establish a link to the lake and beyond it to the War Memorial. It must be a climax to the land axis.
• It should make an open public place - not only as a place for a quick visit for tourists, but also for a place which encourages meeting, a place which might in future attract various public institutions of the arts or sciences which could be associated with it. The great court which is given such prominence is considered as an expression of the representative nature of the parliament and a proper expression for a democracy which endorses the right to freedom of speech and assembly.
• The enclosure of the court should be an open one, not that suggested by the image of a walled citadel. A screen of columns or arcades which provide shelter, enclosure and yet allows views in and out seems to reinforce this intention.
• The open accessibility by the public to committee rooms and rooms of meeting suggested their positioning at one end of such an open court or square.

In this project it is the Reception Hall With its connotation of Hospitality that is the climax to the main axis of the building. It terminates the land axis, echoing the War Memorial across the lake with Mt. Ainslie behind it. It is also the climax to the ceremonial journey through the building, allowing the public to survey the whole building and to appreciate the views of the hills and lake which distinguish Canberra from other Capitals of the world.