Sydney Park Amenities
Sydney Park Amenities
A set of public amenities in Sydney Park; each building, a poetic response to its urban bushland landscape, with one servicing the adjacent bike track, and one situated in the Wetlands Precinct.
Location
Gadi Country Alexandria, NSW
Client
City of Sydney
Completion
2015-2019 2021-2024
Sydney Park is the largest park owned and managed by the City of Sydney and has been transformed from a waste disposal site into 44 hectares of premier parkland over the last 30 years. Our initial brief for the Bike Track building was to develop a design that responded to the main Amenities Building and Kiosk constructed in 2009 in the western part of the park and deliver this within a significantly leaner budget, overcoming complex environmental and contextual constraints.
Drawing on numerous site references, a strong graphic language was developed for the new buildings that identifies the projects within a suite of park facilities. The designs provide the shelter and amenity required, with a sense of generosity and spirit, while equally addressing the safety concerns notoriously associated with public amenities and incorporating the lessons learnt over time by the City.
Taking cues from both the planted and constructed surrounding landscape of mounds and gullies, our design plays with the patterns of light and shadow that filter through the canopy, shifting and changing the user experience over the course of the day.
Extending to provide both covered and shaded spaces, the steel canopy sits as a backdrop to the children’s cycling area.
By maximising natural light and ventilation, the facility requires minimal energy use for its day to day operation. In addition, water efficient sanitary fittings and fixtures were selected, alongside robust materials and finishes that require minimal maintenance.
“The City’s brief for amenities at Sydney Park addressed some of the notorious issues with public amenities. To provide a safe, generous ‘open and ‘comprehensible’ facility and shelter for park users, particularly children and families. It was to consider previously built amenities, incorporating lessons learnt over time.
The modest facility designed by Aileen Sage is a highly resolved, considered, robust and joyful response to the brief. It shows that the architects engaged in intelligent dialogue with the broad client stakeholder group and demanding requirements can result in a high quality and value outcome of great public benefit.”
City of Sydney, Client Statement
A communal basin creates a sense of connectivity and the landscape continues to the buildings edge, enveloping it into the surrounding urban bushland and making it part of its place.
While the key design features from the original amenities are echoed in the subsequent building, they have been redesigned for the specificities of a new site, which holds equally complex conditions.
Team
Credits
Photography
Brett Boardman, Guy Wilkinson
Awards
Winner
Public Architecture Award, AIA NSW
Award
Small Project Architecture, AIA NSW