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Lismore builder wins award for restoration work

The Lismore App

Will Jackson

30 July 2019, 5:41 AM

Lismore builder wins award for restoration workLismore's Uniting Church was badly damaged in the 2017 flood. PHOTO: Supplied.

A leading Lismore construction firm won a swag of gongs at the regional Master Builders Association awards on the weekend for the heritage restoration of a flood-damaged church in the CBD and development of a "pod" dwelling on the coast.


Greg Clark Building’s Jenny Clark said an average of 10 tradesmen worked on restoring the Uniting Church on the corner of Keen and Woodlark streets for about 10 months following the 2017 flood.


“It was wonderful working with the Uniting Church to restore the church after the flood,” Ms Clark said.


“Like everything in Lismore it was pretty extensively damaged.”






Ms Clark said the brief covered all aspects of the historic building - from cleaning and repointing the exterior bricks to repairing the plaster and timber veneers. Even the sloping floor was levelled.


“We actually had to bring some of the older tradespeople in town back work to show the younger ones how to do some of the techniques that are no longer in use so the work would match,” Ms Clark said.


“We had help from Sidney and Hacking who did a lot of the plastering and roofing, and Goldsmiths who also did a lot of the plastering.”


All this was done while the church continued to run services.


Greg Clark Building also took home three awards for their work on an unusual “futuristic” residential dwelling on Point Danger at Tweed Heads that incorporated two round "pods" and had no straight lines or right angles.



“The other project was completely different to the Uniting Church,” Ms Clark said.


“It was quite difficult. No one wanted to take it on. We had to engage some of the artists and designers at Movie World to help us.”


She said the Movie World technicians helped create three dimensional molds of the pods for the concrete reinforcement.


“You had to think outside the square for that one,” she said. "It wasn't your normal building.”


Ms Clark said that the awards meant a lot to the team.


“It's recognition of a lot of hard work for some excellent tradesmen,” she said.


“It's a testament to the people we employ who were able to apply their skills and meet the challenge the jobs presented.”

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