The Bidura Children’s Court is a multi-storey, white off-form concrete building. 

The building sits on a podium with two levels set below the ground. The upper levels step back from three of the site's boundaries, further reducing the building’s mass and scale. Expressing each level are wide, cantilevered terraces edged with reinforced concrete balustrades and tubular railings. Juxtaposed against the floating horizontal terraces are several semi-cylindrical vertical elements that express stairwells.

The original scheme included landscaping in planter boxes around the edges of each terrace to further soften the building. From a distance, it would have been substantially clad in green, with an almost 'Babylonic' appearance. 

Special thanks to Jenna Reed Burns

The existing has undergone only minor alterations over the three decades since it was built. It has suffered from a lack of maintenance and neglect over the years. It has continued to function as the Children’s Court for Sydney since its completion in 1983. The remand centre function of the building ceased in 1985.

The building is to be demolished. The NSW government has sold the building to developers. They plan to demolish the building, further excavate the site and erect two seven- to eight-storey residential towers and ten three-storey townhouses. Architects, conservationists and the Save Bidura campaign have been working to preserve the building since 2015. In spring 2019, the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales once again rejected an appeal to save the brutalist Bidura Metropolitan Remand Centre in Sydney's Glebe from demolition.

This building was included in the red list, published in our exhibition catalog SOS Brutalism: A Global Survey (September 2017). After a status review on July 29, 2024, it is still classified as red (endangered) in the online database.