1 Earth

  • Lakunbut Village, Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea

    160 Room Accomodation Facility + 22 Villas Accomodation Facility

  • Location

    Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea

  • Client

    The Land Owners On The Island Of Lihir & Lihir Gold Limited

Before and during the GFC period PTI was fortunate to work on a number of projects in New Guinea. Our main work was on the island of Lihir. We were invited to work on this project from the Client seeing our hotel project at Hervey Bay (see separate entry).

Lihir is some 2 hours by plane from Port Moresby. It is home to one of the world’s largest gold mines. Our task was to design a quality accommodation facility to attract and cater for expat engineers and other professional staff and their families who work on the gold mine, and to at the same time provide a facility that would be owned by the island’s indigenous people which would operate as an income producing hotel investment after the mining works on the island had been completed.

Many tourists from around the world already travel up the Sepik River to see and experience the life and culture of the New Guinea peoples, while others travel to see the beautiful islands of New Guinea with their very rich and spiritual cultures, their diving, big game fishing, surfing and trekking and also to experience the special warmth and hospitality of its people. The island of Lihir has all of this also ~ it has access to beautiful beaches and spectacular bush walks, very friendly and warm people and it is an island in itself which was yet to be “discovered” by the tourism market. With the significant funding, infrastructure and other benefits provided by the mine, it had a unique opportunity to set itself up as a new tourism destination for the future.

As such we designed an accommodation facility of 160 rooms and 22 villas with a range of recreation facilities as well as food and beverage and other support areas. This would be for mining staff initially and then would work as an integrated resort.

With changing circumstances on the island, the project did not proceed. In 2009 PTI won an International Design Award in the annual CNBC Asia Pacific Property Awards for this project.