The Faculty of Arts Precinct is located on a prominent site on the crest of a small ridge, at the main entry to the Newnham campus. This is the main arrival point for the university, and so a significant new campus entry has been created in both landscape and urban form. Accommodation includes academic facilities for the Social Sciences and Humanities Groups as well as a separate Riawunna Aboriginal Education Centre and public lecture theatre. The project represents a shift in architectural approach for the university, for the design injects a new vocabulary, with an urban manner of pathways, courtyards, generous vistas and a complex of interlinked building forms and spaces. The outcome is like a small village, a collection of individual buildings and public spaces that are receptors for gathering, learning and enjoyment.

The Riawunna Centre for Aboriginal Education is located on a prominent site at the main entry to the Newnham campus. The Riawunna Centre is a striking metal clad curvaceous building set in its own garden. The plan shape is pincer like, with a smooth curving exterior enclosing a protected north-facing courtyard. Encircling the building is a field of totem rocks, set in a sea of shell grit. The landscape setting is of special significance, with the design of the garden being undertaken collaboratively with the local indigenous community, and led by landscape architects Jim Sinatra and Phin Murphy. The building contains staff offices, a community gathering room, a resources centre, archival space, seminar and computer facilities. The main public spaces all have direct access to the outdoor courtyard, which is constantly used for many community activities. “The landscape became Riawunna – the circle – and the building sits within Riawunna...for the garden symbolises the coming together of people, which is represented in the placement of rocks and plants from different areas in Tasmania”