Evelyn Reynolds

Why can’t a street also be a park? Could we turn Sydney’s city carparks into communal green spaces? And what if we transformed the countless pockets of neglected residual land that dot Sydney into biodiverse micromeadows?
These are just some of the pointed questions posed by the winning entries in the inaugural Public Space Ideas Competition organized by the Committee for Sydney and NSW government with the support of AECOM and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects.

Eight projects have received awards in the competition, chosen from a pool of 500 entries. NSW planning minister Rob Stokes says the innovative ideas on display show the transformative potential of public space projects. “Whether [it] is a patch of grass near home, or an empty laneway on the way to the train station – all public space can be reimagined,” he says.
Taking home the Minister’s prize is a proposal from a group of landscape architects, architects and designers from Arup to transform a 10-kilometre pipeline running from Pipehead to Potts Hill into an interconnected green spine for Sydney’s Western suburbs.

The largely fenced-off pipeline corridor currently contains three pipelines, only one of which is operating, carrying potable water. The Arup design team says that opening the reserve surrounding the pipeline and decommissioning the inoperable pipes will revitalize the linear landscape and turn it into “community-loved infrastructure.”
Winning the award for best open space idea is a team from Cred Consulting, whose idea is to transform underused open space into micromeadows to connect to nature, protect threatened fauna and flora, and “beautify our neighbourhoods.” The spaces they’re thinking of are empty green spaces that, due to their limited street frontage and location in the middle of residential blocks, serve little benefit to residents as they are. “Our idea is transformational because it is changing the way we think about public space as areas of unencumbered green space – into areas that are beautiful, naturally established, and require minimal intervention or maintenance from humans,” they write.

The winner of the best public facility idea is The Modern Carpark, a proposal from the City of Bankstown that envisions city carparks as community “hotspots” with facilities like bike and ride-sharing areas, parcel pickup lockers, community arts and culture spaces, and open space where people can socialize and relax.

Recognized for the best street idea is Georgina de Beaujeu, who proposes a new way to use private developments as a catalyst to transform public streetscapes.

“How?” de Beaujeu asks. “By looking at public and private land in our streets holistically – changing setbacks and offsets, closing roads, changing traffic movements and speeds, adopting shared permeable driveways, underground parking, median/blister, verge and private tree plantings, covered/underground powerlines and mixed tree planting to enable large trees to shade the road – the list goes on.”
Other winning ideas include a plan to introduce a 30kph speed limit for non-arterial roads, a scheme to change the way we use open space and water in South Sydney and a proposal to unlock the potential of Sydney’s historic urban utility infrastructure.

Committee for Sydney CEO Gabriel Metcalf says the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of public spaces in Sydney.
“Many of the entries focus on ways to improve Sydney’s natural environment and green spaces, as well as encouraging safer roads and more access for walking and cycling,” she says. “As our city rebuilds from the pandemic, we have a great opportunity to reshape the city and make it even more enjoyable for the people who live and work here.”
To see all the winning ideas, head here. More

Detailed designs for the four major buildings of the Waterloo over-station development on Gadigal land in Sydney have been submitted for planning consideration.
Four architects are leading the design of the project, which is divided into three precincts. Hassell and Aileen Sage Architects are together designing a 22-storey residential tower in the central precinct, Woods Bagot is designing a 17-storey commercial building in the northern precinct and Bates Smart is designing two towers (a 25-storey student accommodation tower and a nine-storey social housing tower) for the southern precinct. Overall, the project will also include a 1,350-square-metre public plaza.

The mixed-use precinct is being delivered by developers Mirvac and John Holland in collaboration with the NSW government and will cost around $900 million in total. A concept approval for the development was approved in 2019, but the proponents have submitted a concept plan that will supersede the previous one, along with four detailed development applications – one for each of the precincts and another for a basement carpark.

“The Waterloo Metro Quarter will be an important hub with residents and office workers just a few minutes’ train ride to the CBD,” said Department of Planning executive director of key sites Anthea Sargeant.

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The Waterloo Metro office tower by Woods Bagot.

Hassell and Aileen Sage Architects’ residential tower will include 150 apartments, including 24 affordable housing units, a two-level childcare centre, ground-floor shops and a pedestrian link from Botany Road to Cope Street Plaza.
“Prominently located in the centre of the precinct, facing the new Cope Street Plaza to the east and the bus interchange to the west this building will play a significant role in how people engage and remember this place,” the architects state in planning documents. “The built form will respect and draw inspiration from Waterloo’s rich and diverse history and culture from Indigenous connections, migrant and working class communities.”

Woods Bagot’s office tower will contain 35,000 square metres of floor space, with an approximate capacity of 4,000 workers. The tower is conceived as a collection of volumes of different sizes to break down the overall bulk. “The tower form sitting above the podium and the station box consists of four main volumes marking each corner of the site held together by the central volume and the core on the western edge,” write the architects. “As the tower lands on top of Waterloo Station it provides a continuous built form on the vertical plane, with coordinated facade grids between the metro station and the tower.”

The student accommodation tower by Bates Smart will house 474 students, a gym and a community space, while the directly adjacent social housing building will contain 70 apartments and a communal roof terrace. The buildings will be designed to have their own separate identities and character to reinforce the architectural diversity of the precinct. “The form and materiality of the Social Building responds directly to its Metro Station podium. Its facade is defined by face brick piers separated by recessed balconies, fine metal screens and planters that respond to orientation and reinforce its residential character,” planning documents state. “The brickwork podium to the Student Building responds to the scale of the adjoining heritage listed church and provides a human scale to the street. Its vertical articulation responds to the fine grain character of existing adjacent buildings whilst reinforcing the identity of its separate uses that include retail, community, student and the social entry.”
The development applications are on public exhibition until 2 December, and the project is scheduled for completion in 2024, in time for the opening of the Sydney Metro City and Southwest line. More

Griffith University is seeking expressions of interest (EOIs) from architecture firms to design a $150M building at its Nathan campus, which will be the new home for the education, criminology and applied psychology disciplines.
The EOI process will run to 27 November through the Queensland government’s QTender website. The university will then invite a shortlist of practices to participate in a design competition.
To be known as the Professional Education Building, the 24,000-square-metre facility will play a major role in consolidating the arts, education and law academic group with that of health. It will include facilities for general academic functions as well as specialist teaching spaces, including wet teaching laboratories.

Director of major projects at the university, Steve Grimes, said the architectural competition would focus on large firms with established capacity in higher education projects, but that the university would also be carrying out a number of associated relocation and refurbishment projects, and these projects would generate opportunities for smaller firms. He encouraged local firms to submit EOIs.

“Queensland is home to outstanding architectural talent and we want to see it engaged in this project,” he said.

The Professional Education Building will be the latest in a number of major projects at the Nathan campus.
“Two substantial developments have started the process of transforming Nathan into a world-class campus for teaching, learning and research in the 21st century,” Grimes said. “The Engineering, Technology and Aviation Building and the Sir Samuel Griffith Centre have become the centrepieces of the Nathan campus and will be joined by the Professional Education Building in 2025.”
The Sir Samuel Griffith Centre was designed by Cox Architecture and the Engineering, Technology and Aviation Building was designed by Hassell.

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The new Vivid Slimline SS range is an evolution of Phoenix’s popular and timeless Vivid Slimline range.
It is particularly suited to outdoor kitchens, laundries, and coastal residential areas, thanks to the superior corrosion resistance of 316 stainless steel, which provides extra years of life and usage where harsh elements are an issue.
The new range went through a year in development. The research and design team conducted rust testing on various grades of stainless steel before deciding to proceed with the higher grade 316 and providing a lifetime warranty on the finish.

Phoenix Tapware
phoenixtapware.com.au More

Leading architects from Australia and around the world will present in Design Speaks’ upcoming Architecture Symposium program, which returns in a new format in late November.
The symposium will comprise four distinct sessions each looking at the future of living through a different lens: alternative housing models, the integration of social agendas, emerging directions in market-based housing and compact housing. Participants can choose to take part in just one, or all or the sessions, which will be accessible online.

The curators of The Architecture Symposium: Housing Futures, Hannah Tribe and Andrew Burns, have selected contemporary architects whose projects respond creatively to the spectrum of housing challenges and opportunities.
“We have, as a profession, an opportunity to step confidently from turbulent times into a future where we take the lead on the transformation of the urban, suburban and regional residential environment,” said Tribe and Burns. “The Architecture Symposium will highlight projects that are already doing so, opening directions for the profession and stimulating new ways of living.”

The first session, on 25 November, will look at new directions in market housing. Speakers including Angelo Candalepas of Candalepas Associates, Philip Thalis of Hill Thalis Architecture and Urban Design and Alison Brooks of Alison Brooks Architects will present their respective projects and speculate on how today’s crises – climate, pandemic, recession – will affect the future of market housing.

In the second session on 27 November, presenting architects will discuss alternative housing models. Clare Cousins will discuss her eponymous firm’s role in the Nightingale Village, the ambitious housing project based on a modified version of Germany’s baugruppe model; Adam Haddow of SJB will discuss the Illawarra Road co-housing project; Huw Turner and Penny Collins, of Collins and Turner, will talk about Hablis, specialist long-term accommodation for the homeless mentally ill.

The third session (2 December) looks at housing with a social agenda, and includes international speakers Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu of SO-IL, who will present a social housing project in Mexico, along with Rachel Nolan of Kennedy Nolan and Melissa Bright of Studio Bright.

And the finally, on 4 December, the last session will look at compact housing, with architects discussing typical suburban subdivisions that have been revisited to provide additional housing density. Timothy Hill, of Partners Hill, will discuss his project Mermaid Multihouse, Emma Williamson of The Fulcrum Agency will present Boonooloo Road Housing and Melody Chen of A-CH will show Yandina Sunrise.
Each session will close with a panel discussion lead by Hannah Tribe and Andrew Burns.
To see the full program, head here.
Design Speaks’ The Architecture Symposium is organized by Architecture Media, the publisher of ArchitectureAU.com. It is supported by major partner Planned Cover. More

Rothelowman has finessed its designs for a 29-storey office and apartment tower in South Brisbane, adjusting the approved scheme by reducing apartment and parking numbers.
The tower at 13-17 Cordelia Street, South Brisbane, on the lands of the Turrbal and Yuggera peoples, will now house 265 build-to-rent apartments, down from 310, along with 951 square metres of office space and 261 square metres of retail on the ground floor.
Developer Arklife submitted the amended application on 23 October, having won approval for the original proposal back in 2017.

In planning documents, Rothelowman describes how the built form responds to the tower’s mix of uses.
“These rich and varied offerings are outwardly expressed through the interplay of building structure, tectonic assembly and the collection of spaces strategically integrated throughout the tower for heightened occupant experience and a sense of place,” the architects state.

“An activated multi-level subtropical podium experience engages with the existing Jolly and Batchelor premises.”

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13-17 Cordelia Street by Rothelowman.

The locally listed heritage building was built as the Astill and Freeman Boot Factory in the late 19th century and was bought by Batchelor and Jolly, a leather manufacturing company, in 1964. Batchelor and Jolly operated out of the building until 1994.
“Existing heritage primary facades, internal timber structures and lightweight roof structure will be reinstated in-situ to recall South Brisbane’s industrial past,” state the architects. “The relationship of the heritage fabric and associated interiors are carefully considered in the new programmatic overlays to enhance its former character and establish pedestrianized thresholds at the entry forecourt.”

Overall, the building will have a tripartite composition defined by podium, tower and roof, with the singular tower massing articulated through four slender forms.
The landscape design by Lat 27 will aim to create a “sensory garden filled with a variety of colours and textures that will carry through the first few levels of the building.”
An elevated “skygarden” in the centre of the tower will open up city views and improve sightlines. It will feature a collection of lushly planbted communal “living rooms,” each space accommodating a different communal function to promotes social interaction. A recreation rooftop with swimming pool will be framed by the expressed structural frame that “crowns the building and frames human scale apertures of the city and greater landscape beyond.” More

The Abbotsford Convent Foundation has appointed Hassell to lead a masterplan for the protection and enhancement of the historic convent precinct that sits within a bend of the Birrarung (Yarra River) in Melbourne’s north-east.
Hassell was selected through a competitive tender process as lead consultant, and will prepare a masterplan that will shape the precinct’s management over the next decade and beyond. The foundation secured funding through the federal government’s Australian Heritage Grants program and the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation to update the masterplan, which was last updated in 2005.

“An updated masterplan will provide a comprehensive, integrated vision for the convent’s future,” said foundation chair Victoria Marles. “As we reimagine the world we will live in through and post the pandemic, there has perhaps never been a more vital time to undertake this strategic visioning. I am thrilled that Hassell will be leading this project, bringing together the best designers and thinkers in a unique, collaborative process that will have a lasting impact on the precinct for years to come.”

Occupied by one of the largest convents in Victoria through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, the site is today an arts, education and cultural hub. It was added to the national heritage list in 2017 for its historic and architectural significance.

“Our purpose is to design places people love. Places that facilitate connections, between people as well as between people and the ecosystems, cultures and histories we live in,” said Hassell principal Ben Duckworth. “The Convent is a much-loved place that does exactly that – it represents the qualities that make a city a worthy place to live in: a place of genuine exchange between people, through personal interactions and expressions of culture. We see a rich variety of opportunities to amplify and expand these qualities even further.”
Hassell will begin work on the Abbotsford Convent precinct masterplan in November 2020, with the project to be completed by October 2021.

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A $20.4 million, 19-metre-high water polo and aquatics centre would be built on a narrow strip of land connecting Sutherland shire to the Kurnell Peninsula, under plans submitted to the local council.
The Sharks Aquatic Centre, designed by Turner, has been in the works for a number of years as part of the wider Cronulla High School Master Plan, which was approved in 2014. To be operated by the not-for-profit Sharks International Water Polo Academy, the venue would host local, regional, state and national water polo competitions, as well as facilitating training and education. It would include a 50-metre pool and seating for around 1,000 spectators, along with an exercise physiology suite, classrooms, offices and other ancillary spaces.

Turner, in planning documents, describes how the building has been designed in reference to its scenic location.
“There is a reference to the sea and sand dunes, which is emphasized in the movement of the façade and the play on reflection and refraction to evoke a building that interacts with light and shadow,” the architects state.

“The verticality and frequency of the columns that wrap around the building reference the dense mangroves that surround the bay.”
The design seeks to create a legible building, which is safe and connected, in order to attract new people to the sport.

“The frequency of the vertical columns which surround the whole perimeter are used to define areas for gathering, meeting and entry points, and have become a key component in the signage and wayfinding strategy,” the planning documents state.

The challenging nature of the shape of the site has been embraced and celebrated by an articulated façade, which leads visitors around to the building entry from the moment of arrival whilst instilling a sense of movement.”
The proposed height – 18.77 metres at the tallest point – breaches the 12 metres allowed at the site by local planning rules, but the architects note that the bulk of the building falls within the regulations and that “the ridged portion of the roof is set back from the boundary of the neighbouring residential development to minimize the impact of the increased height.”
Habit8 is the landscape architect for the project and Capital Bluestone is the developer. More