Kelsey Munro, Jen Rosenberg SMH December 3, 2011
The price of good design
IN A few years, an unloved and unlovely part of the city will have been transformed into ”a gallery of eminent architects”, with new buildings by three Pritzker Prize winners, a 6400-square-metre park and a power station.
Investments totalling $1.5 billion from the University of Technology, Sydney, along with the joint venture developing the former Carlton&United Breweries site near Central Station, are set to reshape the southern end of the city centre.
On Broadway’s south side, a 33-storey residential tower shrouded in elaborate vertical gardens is rising around a new landscaped park, remnant brewery buildings and a planned tri-generation power station to supply the new complex.
Terraced gardens at One Central Park. Artist’s impression.
A cantilevered heliostat at the top of the building will direct light into the complex and become a digital artwork at night.
One Central Park
One Central Park, Sydney. Artist’s impression.
”There’s no doubt it’s going to be a stunning transformation over the next five years,” Guy Pahor, of Frasers Property, said.
Frasers is developing the One Central Park site in a joint venture with Sekisui House. ”Broadway’s going to be transformed, not just by the nature and volume of the construction, but the quality – call it a gallery of eminent architects,” he said.
With Gehry, there are Jean Nouvel, Richard Johnson, Norman Foster and vertical-garden pioneer Patrick Blanc in the internationals.
Atelier Jean Nouvel, residential towers with the heliostat illuminated at night time. Central Park. Artist’s impression.
Australian firms include Tzannes Associates, Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, Denton Corker Marshall and Durbach Block Jaggers.
Gehry, Nouvel and Foster have won the Pritzker, architecture’s highest honour.
When the first stage of One Central Park is finished in late 2013, there will be about 1900 new apartments for 2500 residents and space for 5400 workers in offices and a four-storey mall.
Richard Johnson buildings, Cental Park. Artist’s impression.
The developer has worked to sway objectors angry at the height of the towers, holding several community forums, investing in a public art program and allowing local artists to work rent-free in heritage warehouses on the site.
Atelier Jean Nouvel, residential towers, Central Park. Artist’s impression.
UTS
For UTS, the development was as much about creating an education hub for the whole area as it was expanding its footprint, the vice-chancellor, Ross Milbourne, said.
”The exciting thing about this project is that it takes an area that has been quite rundown – it’s always been the poor cousin to the rest of Sydney – and it’s really reinventing itself to be a cultural and educational precinct.”
Across the road, the base of the 27-storey brutalist concrete UTS tower will be wrapped in an undulating glass facade, and construction starts in March on a new 14-storey faculty building dramatically sheathed in angular aluminium on the corner of Broadway and Jones Street.
Off Harris Street, the university is also building Australia’s first Frank Gehry building, with its distinctive crumpled facade and treehouse-like skeleton, which caused much controversy when plans were unveiled late last year.
UTS’s Dr Chau Chak Wing building, designed by Frank Gehry, his first Australian project. The 16,030-square-meter (172,545-square-foot) business school building at the University of Technology, Sydney, will have a “treehouse” design, incorporating a core yellow brick and crinkly glass structure, with “branches” spreading away from it, Gehry says.
Significantly, the site engages with the adjacent abandoned railway line and bridge and will feed into the pedestrian zone further up.
Professor Milbourne said the university had planned its growth to benefit students and the neighbourhood. ”We have a plan for student growth on our campus but part of it is to make it a better student experience, so more space for students … increasing student housing around this area and making it a safer environment,” he said.
The Broadway redesign links two other big redevelopments – Darling Harbour and Barangaroo - but has managed much of the latter’s controversy.
Professor Milbourne and the UTS deputy vice-chancellor (resources), Patrick Woods, attribute that to strong collaboration with the neighbours. These include the ABC, the Powerhouse Museum and TAFE.
Atelier Jean Nouvel, residential towers, Central Park. Artist’s impression.
David Riordan, director of TAFE NSW-Sydney Institute, said the relationship between the two institutions was very positive.
”This is going to be the hub of education in Australia and we believe that we’re here to meet those needs and that we’ll be a key player,” Mr Riordan said.
Copyright SMH
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