With its adjoining Edmund Blacket-designed wings (Blocks A & C) and the smaller WL Vernon-designed buildings on the site, most designed to be sympathetic and complementary to the architectural harmony of the site through the use of matching materials and proportions, the complex is able to reflect the aesthetically attractive ambitions of the early colony. The design of Block B was a distinct departure from the typical box-like shape of public buildings, thus reflecting the creative design influence of Macquarie on the creation of the civic environment and, possibly, the government architect Francis Greenway, who has been attributed with the design. The quality and craftsmanship of the convict labour gangs is also reflected in the construction (their work still distinguishable by the broad arrow "frog" imprinted on the convict-made bricks).
