Hill ThalisWe have made a submission to the Department of Planning that lists in detail the failings of Lend Lease’s recent application to modify the approved Concept Plan for Barangaroo. Download our detailed Submission for details.
Hill Thalis is undertaking works on the refurbishment of Fitzroy Gardens and Lawrence Hargraves Reserve for the City of Sydney with Sue Barnsley Landscape Architecture and a team of twelve specialist consultant practices. Details of the project can be found on the City of Sydney’s Web Exhibition, where you can make comment on the proposal. Fitzroy Gardens and Lawrence Hargraves Reserve
Hundreds of people attended a protest rally organised by the Barangaroo Action Group and the Friends of Barangaroo on 26th June, 2010. Listen to Matthew Campbell’s song written for the rally The Desecration of Barangaroo
Pirrama Park has received an Architecture Award for Urban Design in this year’s NSW Chapter awards. St Peter’s Green, Pyrmont Canopy and Belvedere and Bankstown Apartments were all shorlisted in their categories.
Hill Thalis congratulates Jan McCredie, recipient of the Marion Mahony Griffin prize in recognition of a “lifetime commitment to urban design in government as a developer of frameworks, guidelines and standards, as a passionate educator, as a private practitioner and promoter of good urban design through her active involvement with the Australian Institute of Architects and the Planning Institute of Australia.”
The Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, received the President’s prize – the President noting that her “unwavering support for architecture is based on her interest in social justice and the environment.”
We also congratulate former Hill Thalis members Michael Lewarne and Angelo Korsanos, now of Redshift Architecture and Art, for their Commendation in the Multiple Housing category.
Pyrmont Point Park was officially opened by the City of Sydney in March. See the Sydney Morning Herald for a timelapse photographic series of the construction of the park.
See the Barangaroo Action Group Website. To see the Hill Thalis, Jane Irwin, Paul Berkemeier competition scheme, download copies of the panels at Barangaroo. Also available for download is a copy of the competition report, outlining all of the proposed public domain initiatives in the competition plan, and a summary of the Barangaroo process since the commencement of the competition in 2005.
The NSW government has announced that Lend Lease has been awarded the tender for the southern development parcel at Barangaroo. This is, of course, extremely disappointing to our practice – but more importantly has significant implications for the future of Barangaroo as a publicly accessible part of the city.
The new plan has removed the fine grained street pattern of the winning proposal, in favour of a privatized plaza-scape. Even more alarmingly, the proposal includes private development on the harbour itself. The herald reports that, ‘Lend Lease argues that its proposal will ‘‘gift’‘ large swathes of land back to the community by making the most of the site open to the public and creating two new coves.’ This land will not be “gifted” back to the community – it already belongs to the community – and the public interest should be guiding its transformation.
The site should be developed with a finely worked, intelligent and cohesive public structure that enshrines public access and allows for a mix of uses to develop over time. Not just corporate headquarters and glitzy international hotels – but housing, public housing, spaces for small businesses and studios, small local parks, gymnasiums, libraries, community rooms and the like.
Instead development interests, aided and abetted by the state government, are once again pursuing commercial interest over public rights.
We will continue to review material relating to the new proposal as it becomes publicly available, and to post updates relating to this material on our site. In the interim, we refer you to the following media articles
Letters to the Editor, Developer will take over the site, Grand slam for barangaroos grand plan and Barangaroo harbours controversy
See also The NSW Greens Response and drawings that compare the new proposal to the existing planning controls at the Sydney Morning Herald. Matthew Moore’s articles in the Sydney Morning Herald Storming the headland, and Architect sees conspiracy in Barangaroo lockout or perhaps enjoy Butterpaper’s eloquent graphic analysis of the transformation of Barangaroo.
The St Peters Green project has been completed. See the St Peters Green website for Testimonials from the new residents.
Philip Thalis presented a talk at the Institute of Architects at Manning Street, Potts Point at 6.30, Tuesday 15th September. The talk was titled ‘Project and Polemic’ and presented the recent work of the practice.
Pyrmont Point Park was awarded the National award in the CCAA Bi annual Public Domain Awards. It was also the winner of the Precincts award and the NSW award.
Sustainable Sydney 2030 won a commendation in the Australia Award for Urban Design 2009. The jury said, ‘The Vision is exciting and innovative, and incorporated widespread engagement with the community. It successfully resolved complex, strategic planning issues into detailed and well illustrated urban design solutions.’ See the ArchDaily website for further details.
Philip Thalis and Peter John Cantrill jointly won the 2010 Australian Institute of Architects NSW Presidents Award for Contribution to the Architecture Profession.
As well as directing their respective award winning practices, the pair have worked together intermittently over the last 25 years on a wide range of architectural, urban and cultural activities.
Their joint work spans award winning buildings and competition winning schemes, research and publication, architectural tours and university lectureships.
They are currently working on a new book on the Public Rooms and Public Spaces in the City of Sydney, extending their long fascination with the city’s best architecture.
A series of six films to encourage women to study and work in the fields of Architecture and Construction, where they are statistically under-represented, have been produced by Naomi Stead and Sam Scotting for the University of Technology, Sydney. The films feature interviews with leading female architects, project managers and quantity surveyors and includes parts of an interview with Sheila Tawalo from Hill Thalis. Women in Architecture and Construction
Philip Thalis presented the 2009 Paul Reid Lecture at the University of NSW on Wednesday 11th March. The subject of the lecture was Sydney: re-imagining the public project.
Sustainable Sydney 2030 was awarded the Urban Planning Achievement Award at the NSW PIA Awards for Excellence in Planning held in November. The jury considered the Sydney 2030 to be, ‘an outstanding example of a broadly based strategic plan designed to achieve a sustainable city. The Plan is visionary, incorporating dramatic proposals to reduce the impact of the car in the CBD, including the restoration of interesting pedestrian routes and pedestrian-friendly traffic management.’
Red Wall Jack Floyd Reserve won a Commendation in the Small Projects Category of the 2008 NSW Architecture Awards. The jury citation calls the park, ‘modest, monumental and memorable; the project appears to have always existed.’
The Rose Bay Apartments have won a High Commendation in the Professional Excellence in Building Awards for Beach Constructions.
Hill Thalis is working with the City of Sydney on a joint master planning process for an Affordable Housing Demonstration Project – one of the projects identified in the Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy.
The project involves the construction of up to 700 new affordable, social and private housing units on sites in Glebe and Ultimo.
Housing Minister Matt Brown and Ms Moore have signed a Memorandum of Understanding committing the City of Sydney and the NSW Government to a partnership to develop affordable housing on a 3.6 hectare site in Glebe.
“We are aiming to develop new models of affordable housing which can be replicated around Australia. We want to ensure a healthy mix of accommodation types, not a segregated city with an increasing gulf between the haves and the have-nots,” Ms Moore said.
Hill Thalis, Aspect Studios and CAB Consulting’s recently completed Pyrmont Point Park Master Plan received an award for Excellence at the AILA State Awards.
Substation No. 175 was featured in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Domain 10 year anniversary issue. Elizabeth Farrelly describing it as having, ‘the romantic eccentricity of an Italian tower house, its slender section allowing natural ventilation throughout. A perfect inner-city nest.’
