BRIDGING THE GAP - YAGOONA

516, Hume Highway, Yagoona, Australia

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BRIDGING THE GAP - YAGOONA

516, Hume Highway, Yagoona, Australia

Firm

Type

Residential › Apartment Multi Unit Housing
Commercial › Retail
Hospitality + Sport › Restaurant Bar/Nightclub
Government + Health › City Hall Community Center
Landscape + Planning › Public Park
Transport + Infrastructure › Train/Subway Parking Bus

YEAR

2009

Bridging the Gap: YAGOONA
This project identifies a repeating pattern of neglected suburban land as an opportunity to develop a sensitive urban renewal typology specific to the condition. New, pedestrian prioritised 'connective tissue' has the potential to re-link commuter parking, existing main-street shopping and parklands through the armatures of laneways, foot paths and railway concourse. The generation of a new civic heart in these suburban centres will provide a robust framework for the inevitable redevelopment of up-zoned land that surrounds.
Urban Response
Sydney, the real Sydney, is
a vast metropolis sprawling over massive tracts of land extending far beyond
the globalised 'Emerald City' centre. This meta-city is under attack at a
multitude of levels: congestion, pollution, and densification. The looming
peak-oil crisis, climate change demands, economic pressures and mandatory
up-zoning exert further demands on the marginal suburban centres in this region.

Strategies to deal with
these issues exist at the broad-brush level but are inevitably played out in
the major centres leaving less funded nodes neglected and without a glossy vision.
To this end this proposal explores the predominantly untested ground of Sydney's
suburban town centres, where measured and intelligent design provocation might
serve as a catalyst for change.

Sub-centre Analysis
To more sustainably
accommodate Sydney's rapid population growth the NSW government is enforcing
densification at many suburban rail centres. Most of these sub-centres are
dominated by the non-place of highways, commuter car parks, rail corridors and
residual lands and devoid of any civic life. Latent potential in these lands needs
to be captured as densification occurs to ensure a vibrant future for
occupants.

Yagoona
Yagoona has recently been
up-zoned Council [2:1 FSR] yet there is no strategic plan that anticipates how
additional urban form might or should emerge. The existing railway station, parkland and car parking are
marginalised and disconnected from the highway shopping strip and freestanding
houses beyond.
This project
opportunistically reconfigures Yagoona as a connected centre of activity and
exchange. A new mixed-use building straddles the reconnected ground plane and
retail, announcing the station from both the highway and park sides. The
existing commuter car park to the west is redeveloped as a mulit-purpose
parking station that converts into a fresh produce market square or event space
on the weekends. Early childhood and seniors centres are coupled together and
located at park level to the east. Connecting armatures flank the rail corridor
to the north and are programmed with bars and cafes that overlook the park.

Mixed-use
This project explores the
'adaptive capacity' of building fabric. Like a robust ecology, the proposal has
built-in capacity to adapt to rapid, unanticipated changes in the social and
market systems it supports. Flexibility in the division and use of space permit
the nature of occupation to evolve over time.

The ambition behind the
term 'mixed use' is addressed at a number of morphological and programmatic
levels in this project. The temporal opportunities inherent in the term have
led to solutions that explore changes in use over the day, the week and the
fluctuations of market cycles. Programmatic variance combines the railway
station with retail, market, community, public space and housing uses.

Housing typologies
include multi-level, multi-access, adaptable apartments, single storey dual-key
apartments and clustered apartments centered on 'social nodes'. Many of the
spatial divisions in these dwellings can be used as small work environments or
SOHO with independent entries.

The existing commuter car
park to the west is redeveloped as a mulit-purpose parking station that
converts into a fresh produce market / event space. With minor dimensional
adjustment the parking station becomes a flexible, reprogrammable hybrid structure
that will remain useful beyond the age of the automobile.

Materiality, Innovation and Technology
The use of BRICK is deployed at multiple levels as a
means of 'bridging the gap' in Yagoona. Each material strategy explores a unique
narrative. Proposed detailing exploits new technologies in the design and
fabrication of brickwork showcasing the timeless aesthetic and performative
qualities of this versatile material.

A connective tissue of brick pavement extends from the
Hume Highway, through an active station concourse, expanding to the roof garden
of the commuter car-park to the west. To the east, the warm durable surface
folds and morphs with the landscape providing terraced seating for viewing
community sport and activities.

The station concourse structure [column – beam - ceiling]
is a series of folded planes resolving primary and secondary load transfers in
a reinterpretation of the traditional brick groin. Precast panels with glazed
brick facing provides permanent formwork for the mass concrete transfer
structure. The glazed surfaces are robust and reflect light to the lower levels
of the station below.

A perforated brick screen wraps interstitial spaces
between private and public realms. Bricks are laid by robot and bonded together
with two-part impregnating resin and set into a perimeter steel frame.
Apertures and rotation of bricks within the frame are based on acoustic and
daylight requirements. Greater texture, more rotation and smaller openings at
lower levels diffuse sound from traffic and trains resulting in a façade of rich
variety and visual interest which celebrate the specific qualities of brick in
a new and exciting way.