Competition to design Sydney Harbour Bridge cycle ramp

Competition to design Sydney Harbour Bridge cycle ramp

Transport for New South Wales has launched a design competition to find an architectural team with heritage and Connecting with Country expertise to design a cycle ramp up to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

TfNSW will commence the competitive design process via an open Registration of Interest (ROI). Through this, three leading architectural design will be selected and the community will have the chance later this year to comment on the shortlisted designs, together with plans for the Alfred Street cycle path and the Lavender Street roundabout.

The announcement comes after a community consultation process found overwhelming support for a liner ramp over a looped design, the other option floated by the department.

Community responses showed that a clear majority supported the project, despite a push from North Sydney Council to oppose the ramp, supported by a $15,000 war chest.

Of the 2,578 survey responses received by TfNSW between 7 and 28 June, 68 percent supported the linear option, compared to 5 percent for the looped option, 9 percent for either option and 17 percent for neither.

The responses did show a split between those who lived in immediately proximity to the site compared to those further afield, however.

In the immediate community 60 percent preferred neither option, while 82 percent of respondents in the local area supported a ramp, and 97 percent in the wider area also supported the ramp

The majority of survey responses, 71 percent, were from people who cycle at least once a week, 21 percent were from occasional riders and seven percent never cycle.

Submissions made outside of the survey showed a higher level of opposition to the project. Of the 461 submissions received, 40 percent supported the project and 58 percent opposed it.

TfNSW said that the people who supported the project were impatient. “They believe the project is well overdue and is vital to making cycling a safe and accessible transport option for a wider group of people – not just those fit enough to manage the steps currently.”

Supporters also believed the ramp could help to activate Bradfield Park and bring recreational riders to the local area.

Those in opposition, however, believed the problem had been overstated and that the steps were “a minor inconvenience at worse.” They believed the impacts to open space were not worth the potential benefits.

In terms of the preferred design, supporters of the linear option thought it was the safer option due to its clear sight lines and separation of cyclists, pedestrians and motorists. They also considered it a more direct and easier connection for cyclists and though it looked better and was less intrusive than the loop.

written by: ArchitectureAU Editorial
17 Aug 2021
published in: architectureau.com

Gallery of Design Competition: Sydney Harbour Bridge cycle ramp

Edith Cowan University city campus design unveiled

ECU city campus design unveiled

The design of Edith Cowan University’s proposed Perth city campus, unveiled on Sunday 15 August, will “completely defy traditional expectations,” said the university’s vice-chancellor Steve Chapman.

Designed by Lyons, Silver Thomas Hanley, and UK firm Haworth Tompkins, the campus will be located across two sites opposite Yagan Square, spanning Karak Walk.

“We have a clear vision and ambition for Western Australia’s first comprehensive city campus, and that is to deliver a remarkable university as well as a landmark for Perth’s CBD,” Chapman said.

The campus will integrate the studies of creative industries, business and technology with the university’s Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). It will an 11-storey building with stacked performance spaces, studios and digital labs.

“The campus will be purposefully embedded with industry and connect the commercial, cultural and entertainment precincts of Perth, and is designed to project life, energy, and opportunity into the heart of our city. Its proximity to industry is a game-changer for engagement and partnership with business,” Chapman said.

The campus will be open to William Street Mall and Yagan Square with an immersive entry that envelops the Perth Busport. A digital media façade will create vibrancy along with activated streetscapes and laneways that connect to the Roe, Queen and Wellington Streets.

“Students, staff and visitors will be treated to a sensory experience from the moment they step in. It will be like nothing they have ever known,” Chapman said.

“ECU City’s design, both physically and symbolically, reaches outwards, with a strong visual connection to its surrounds. It will be a university on show – inviting people to connect and be involved with what is occurring within.”

The ECU city campus is the centrepiece of the $1.5 billion Perth City Deal. The $695 million project is funded with $245 million from federal government, $150 million state government and $300 million from ECU.

“This is part of a once-in-a-lifetime transformation of our city centre, and will grow Perth’s reputation as an innovative and vibrant city,” said WA premier Mark McGowan.

Federal minister for cities Paul Fletcher added, “The economic impact of the development will also be significant, with the project supporting over 3,000 jobs during construction and providing an estimated $1.5 billion boost to the WA economy over the next four years.”

A development application for will be submitted in August with early works to start later in 2021. The campus is expected to accommodate more than 9,000 students when it opens in 2025.

written by : ArchitectureAU Editorial
16 Aug 2021
published in : architectureau.com

Geelong oval redevelopment underway

The fifth and final stage of the redevelopment of the Kardinia Park stadium – or GMHBA Stadium – in Geelong is set to get underway once the AFL season ends in September.

Replacing the aging Gary Ablett Terrace and the Ford Stand, the final stage will see the development of a 14,000-capacity, two-tier northern stand that will increase the stadium’s capacity to more than 40,000.

The $142 million project will also include a new northern plaza and “cricket hub” which will establish a new forecourt and entrance.

Populous and Urbis are leading the design, the same design team behind the previous stages.

Kardina Park, or GMHBA Stadium, stage 5 redevelopment by Populous and Urbis.

The new stand will include facilities for professional and community sport, including unisex change rooms, and administration facilities for the Geelong Cricket Club.

The Office of the Victorian Government Architect praised the architectural expression of the project during the planning approval process.

“The tripartite approach breaks down the mass of the singular object and the chosen materials are working cohesively,” it said. “Given the need to tie into the existing canopy architecture, the proposed continuation of the same geometry of folds creates an elegant diagram.

As the formal gateway entrance to the stadium this aspect provides a skyline contribution and backdrop to the plaza. The exterior expression is a critical investment in design quality. The over sailing darts will have a fabulous presence and with careful up lighting on the façade, soffit and upper seating tier can create a wonderful atmosphere at night.

“The materiality of the base brickwork gives the stadium a solid foundation.”

Previous stages in the stadium’s redevelopment included the $26 million Hickey Stand, opened in 2005; the $30 million Premiership Stand, opened in 2010; the $47 million Players Stand, opened in 2013; and the $90 million Brownlow Stand, which opened in 2017.

The Victorian government has announced that construction firm BESIX Watpac will deliver the fifth stage.

written by : ArchitectureAU Editorial
12 Aug 2021
published in : architectureau.com

Wood Marsh Built Curvaceous Home Clad In Dark Timber Contrasting Its Natural Landscape In Portsea

Portsea House by Wood Marsh

Melbourne-based architecture firm Wood Marsh has built a curvaceous home clad in dark timber placed atop a curved, rammed-earth, blade wall in the Victorian suburb of Portsea, Australia.
Named Portsea House, the private home was designed as a bold statement to its natural surrounding to create a sharp contrast. Situated in a leafy pocket of Portsea, the house is distinguished with its two contrasting areas, elevated by light and dark, openness and containment.

In front façade of the house, a curved, rammed-earth, blade wall acts as a castle that maintains the privacy of the house, while wrapping like a scroll across the site.

As well as its strong visual intervention, its mass acts as a thermal regulator and balances the upper level as it cantilevers out from the slope.

According to the studio, “formally it creates privacy from the street, a key factor of the brief and is reinforced by the structure’s discrete siting and use of dark timber weatherboard cladding.”

“Indigenous landscaping further frames and filters the view of the building and this interaction between the natural environment and the built form continues as a central theme throughout,” the studio added.

Beyond the blade wall, the architects wanted to attract the attention to human’s perception that is drawn around the curved walls, thanks to this curved wall, the form is softened by the absence of edges.

Paying also attention to the external spaces of the house, the outer skin of the house encourages interaction between built form and site while maintaining a distinction in form and accentuating the contrast between the formalist architecture and the naturalist landscape.

The house has two levels. Upon entering the house through the curved wall, guests encounter a grand staircase winding up to the open living space above.

At the opposite side, an entertaining space and a hidden bar are designed gently in a flexible layout. Dark colored palette still dominates the interior alongside kitchen, walls and black-clad columns.

The house features a full-height glazed rear facade allowing the landscaping beyond to act as the internal wallpaper of the living area. An expansive deck flows from this space and both connects to, and floats over, the site, utilising the natural slope up to the rear corner.

At the rear deck of the house, a swimming pool is partially screened by a curved masonry dwarf wall, which responds to the form of the building and provides a degree of privacy.

The architects used the advantage of the sloping site that largely informed the spatial organisation of residence. The house is divided into three distinct wings, across two levels, and arranged around a central open-air atrium.

Bedroom and service spaces are placed on the two of these wings, while the third and largest wing is used for the living spaces including a secluded bar, entertaining area and kitchen.

A rumpus room is provided at the basement level, which opens onto private courtyard spaces shielded from the street view.

Portsea House Project Details

Architects: Wood Marsh Architecture
Year: 2021
Photographs: Peter Bennetts
Country: Australia

written by : Wood Marsh
09 Aug 2021
published in : worldarchitecture.org

Gallery of Portsea House by Wood Marsh Architecture

Updated Melbourne Metro Tunnel station design unveiled

The Victorian government has unveiled updated designs for Ardern Station in North Melbourne, part of the Metro Tunnel station project, collaboratively designed by Hassell, Weston Williamson and Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners.
Updates to the design included in the new Development Plan contain the provision of a series of public grassed areas interspersed with tree planting, and improved station access with repositioned entry gates and the reorientation of entry ramps on Laurens Street.

The entrance will now feature 15 soaring brick arches, down from the planned 16. These are being built off-site and will be delivered to the station and installed over the coming months.

There will also be a separated, raised bike path on the west side of Laurens Street and the planned Station Lane will be widened to make more space for vehicles.

While the previous Development Plan had the ground level raising locally around the skylight, the design for ground level is now relatively flat, allowing for the skylights to appear raised.

The government said that work is well advanced on the station, with platform construction beginning in March, continuing alongside the installation of the over-track exhaust system and tunnel floor slab.

“Arden Station was where we launched our first tunnel boring machine almost two years ago, and with tunnelling now complete we’ll see the station take shape in coming months and years,” said transport minister Jacinta Allan.

The Metro Tunnel will connect the Sunbury Line to the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines with five new underground stations and will provide a future direct link to Melbourne Airport Rail.

The updated designs are on exhibition until 27 August.

written by : ArchitectureAU Editorial
10 Aug 2021
published in : architectureau.com

Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School Music Centre McBride Charles Ryan

Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School Music Centre - McBride Charles Ryan

The Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School (PEGS) Music Centre, located in Melbourne, Australia, is the latest in a series of interventions undertaken by McBride Charles Ryan (MCR) across the PEGS Campuses. The existing single-level Victorian ‘house’ in this project was used by the School for music tuition. This new building sits alongside one of MCR’s earliest projects for PEGS, completed in 2009, the Junior Boys’ Year 5&6 Building, which plays with the tension between the School and its suburban context, perception, and childhood imagination. This new project was to refurbish the existing historic Music House, add to and provide improved spaces for music tuition and performance.

Together, the three buildings become more than the sum of their parts, activating the impression of a mini-precinct through the ensemble of buildings, and the creation of a fourth element – the courtyard. The new addition of the Music Centre acts as a mediator between the formality of the 2009 building and the Victorian house. The new building is comprised of variously sized practice rooms which allow for individual tuition and group practice. A large classroom has been included, intended for learning, tuition, and as a key performance space for students, parents, and others.

The addition has all the DNA of your archetypical ‘modernist’ school building and can be seen as part of the family of later institutional typologies throughout the campus. The utilitarian and modernist origin is a brick and skillion roof building attached to the more formally complex historic building with its variegated silhouette. The South and West façade’s framed entrances are a reminder of the origins of this institutional typology. The building applies a playful lyricism to the institutional typology, its key gesture, the line of a frozen soundwave, was passed across the building’s undulating plan, generating the north expression which frames both the new outdoor and performance space. This new project continues the thematic inspiration of the 2009 building as a kind of musing on context, beauty, and imagination.

The building uses standard school components in innovative formal composition, with a design intention focused on the pursuit of joy and beauty, allowing the design to transcend the utility of the technology and material used. Beauty and indeed music have their own utility.

The annex’s relationship to the original Victorian Music house attempts to promote a captivating dialogue, seeking to elegantly prolong the life of a historically significant building. The brickwork of the old is echoed in the new, retaining a similar patternation while vibrantly distinguishing the two through color and texture. The undulation and oscillation of the annex’s façade engages with the lyricism of music as an overarching theme, the contrast between existing and contemporary meeting in the middle with carefully considered slippages, as ceiling heights change, thresholds and transitions merge, and the two become one. The heritage is celebrated in every detail, the contrast of volumes, the meeting of a decorative cornice, the preservation of art-deco doors, that add substantially to the narrative and character of the built form.

PEGS Music Centre Project Details

Architects: McBride Charles Ryan
Area: 520 m²
Year: 2020
Photographs: John Gollings Photography
Manufacturers: Euro Clay, Surteco
Country: Australia

written by : Hana Abdel
30 July 2021
published in : archdaily.com

Gallery of PEGS Music Centre by McBride Charles Ryan

Edition Office completes black concrete home in rural Australia

Black-pigmented concrete and black timber battens have been used to create this tactile home in the village of Federal, New South Wales by Australian studio Edition Office.

The Melbourne-based firm designed Federal House to be both a peaceful sanctuary for its clients and a sculptural object dug into a slope in the hilly, forested landscape.

“At a distance the building is recessive, a shadow within the vast landscape,” described Edition Office.

“On closer inspection, a highly textural outer skin of thick timber battens contrasts the earlier sense of a machined tectonic, allowing organic materials gestures to drive the dialogue with physical human intimacy.”

Drawing on the verandah typology common among Australia’s colonial homesteads, a central living, dining and kitchen space is wrapped by a partially covered deck area.

This deck was designed to create a variety of different connections to the surrounding landscape.

It was lined with black timber battens that filter air, views and more direct sunlight on the western edge, and left entirely open for panoramic views to the north.

Sliding glass doors around the living spaces allow them to be completely opened to the elements or sealed off.

At the centre is a double-height garden void, illuminated by a cut in the home’s roof.

“The expansion and contraction of the interior allows shifts between the intimate and the public, between immediate landscape and the expansive unfolding landscape to the north,” said the studio.

Along the eastern edge of the home is the bedroom block, what the studio calls an “enclave of withdrawal, rest and solitude” containing two smaller rooms either side of a bathroom and a large en-suite bedroom with its own private terrace.

For the interiors, the dark wood and concrete are contrasted by lighter wooden floors and tan leather furniture, with custom door pulls designed to encourage a “tactile engagement” with the home.

On the lower level is a thin pool open to the landscape at one end, which cools air as it travels through the building, up the garden void into the living spaces.

This natural ventilation is supplemented with a ceiling fan for the hotter days of the year and a fireplace for winter.

Rural Concrete Home Project Details

Architects: Edition Office
Lead designers: Kim Bridgland, Aaron Roberts
Landscape designer: Florian Wild
Photographs: Ben Hosking
Structural engineer: Westera Partners
Builder: SJ Reynolds Constructions
Country: Australia

written by : Jon Astbury
1 August 2021
published in : dezeen.com

Gallery of black concrete home by Edition Office Architects

Brisbane tower inspired by Queenslanders

Brisbane tower inspired by Queenslanders

An apartment tower proposed for Brisbane has been designed to reference surrounding Queenslanders that appear to be perched on top of each other in hilly Toowong.

Designed by DKO, the 14-storey apartment block at 24-28 Lissner Avenue captures views of the city and river to the north-east and towards Mount Coot-tha to the west.

“The tower form is inspired by driving around Toowong and seeing Queenslanders perched on top of each other as they nestle within the hilly landscape,” DKO states in planning documents.
“A tapestry of balconies, column grids and battens are interspersed with landscape and birdsong. The tower reflects this structural discipline, expressed as a series of posts, columns, slabs and beams.”

The podium would also make reference to the local heritage-listed Regatta Hotel, the veiled masonry podium recalling the fine, intricate fretwork of that famous hotel.

The development would deliver 101 apartments across its 14 levels and would include a rooftop recreation deck with pool.
At ground level, the design prioritizes pedestrian experience of by providing a light and airy lobby. Balconies are designed as outdoor rooms, positioned on corners where possible, to take advantage of the breeze.

Landscape architecture for the project will be by Cusp.

written by : ArchitectureAU Editorial
3 Aug 2021
published in : architectureau.com

Open Shut House WALA

Open Shut House by WALA Architecture

Text description provided by WALA Architecture. The original period building is one of a pair of semi-detached dwellings, with Art-Deco stylings reflecting its Inter-war era. Open Shut House sits on a long and narrow allotment 10m wide and 60m deep with a rearward slope falling 4.2m. The site also backs onto a cricket ground and the Monash Freeway beyond, with northerly winds carrying the sound of traffic to the rear of the property. The owners’ family had outgrown the original building and their brief called for an extension that could be future-proofed and cater to the changing needs of individual family members, particularly their 4 young adult children. The design response had to expand on the functional offerings of the old house as well as ensure that any new addition respected the heritage character and scale of the period home, whilst being a clearly distinguishable yet connected entity.

The design offers private spaces for the inhabitants, housed in two separate buildings connected by a central atrium. The children’s bedrooms are clustered in the old house, physically separate from their parents’ retreat in the new. The narrow hallways of the old house invite exploration, expanding into the double-storey atrium in the physical (and metaphorical) center of the house. Moving deeper into the house, the building responds to the land’s natural fall by cascading a series of tiered living spaces towards the backyard. The space is momentarily compressed again in the Kitchen, before the floor level changes once more and the perception of space swells in the sunken living room and garden beyond.

Openings via skylights, large windows and courtyards not only draw daylight along the length of the buildings, but provide visual relief along the way. Due to the split levels and atrium, the inhabitants can still feel connected visually with each other throughout the house.

As a building of significance, conservation of the front house was imperative. The new addition sought to preserve the front building’s heritage qualities by utlising the fall of the land to tuck itself behind and below the existing roofline, thereby respecting the scale and proportioning of the existing building and adjacent neighbouring dwellings. The new addition is unashamedly contemporary, a clear departure from the architecture of its predecessor in order to distinguish itself and create a counterpoint to the old building. The result is the marriage of two “almost-separate” buildings, connected tenuously via the central atrium and its skylight wedge.

The new addition fulfils the owners’ desire to have 2 generations of people under one roof, yet with the autonomy that each family member has to inhabit each space in their own way. The tiered living spaces inherently allocate specific functions to each “platform” whilst still creating a seamless circulatory and visual flow from front to rear. Here, connections between indoor and outdoor are prevalent and these apertures soften the edges of each programmatic compartment. The new building is also a protective cocoon, sheltering its occupants from the noise of the outside world with its timber shutters and double-glazed pivots.

Open Shut House Project Details

Architects: WALA
Area: 332 m²
Year: 2020
Photographs: Tess Kelly
Manufacturers: &Tradition, Colorbond, Dulux, Jetmaster, Miele, Milli, Mizu, Snap Concrete
Builder: Green X Home
Structural Engineer: HTD Consultants

written by : WALA
17 Jul 2021
published in : archdaily.com

Gallery of Open Shut House - WALA

Australian projects feted in 2021 Inside awards

Australian projects feted in 2021 Inside awards

Ten Australian projects are among the finalists of the 2020/21 Inside World Festival Interiors Awards. More than 100 finalists across 11 categories have made the cut, including bars, restaurants, hotels, workplaces and homes.
The shortlisted practices will present their projects to juries during the Inside festival, co-located with the World Architecture Festival, which will be held in Lisbon from 1 to 3 December.

Australian projects fared well in the Workplace (large) category, making up close to one-third of the shortlist.

“This year’s entries are the strongest we have ever had, and we look forward to seeing the finalists in Lisbon,” said Paul Finch, director of the World Architecture Festival program.

Category winners will then compete with each other for the title of World Interior of the Year.

The Australian finalists

Education
UTS Central – FJMT
Health and Fitness
The Gandel Wing – Bates Smart
Public Buildings
Sydney Coliseum Theatre – Cox Architecture
Retail
David Jones Elizabeth Street – Benoy
Sarah and Sebastian – Russell and George

Workplace (large)
Arup Sydney – Hassell
CBA Axle South Eveleigh – Woods Bagot
Flinders Gate NextHome – Decibel Architecture
Transurban Melbourne – Hassell