Located at the edge of central Sydney, the ambition of the project was to reinvigorate the under-ulitised 7.5 hectare park, and upgrade the tired public pool. The overriding principle was to premiate landscape over built form, based on a conviction that in these inner urban areas, green space is sacred.
The new park plays on the episodic placement of elements with a new spatial and ecological sensibility – adding life and contemporizing it without erasing its Victorian roots. The upgraded pool is the City’s first pool that is fully trigeneration ready. The new pool building is designed as a piece of ‘folded landscape’ with a green roof of native ‘meadow’ grasses that embeds it into the park. The building – 6m deep and 120m long – is intimate and monumental, scaled to the swimmer and scaled to the city. The building’s continuous cantilevered roof edge, soffit, ceiling, and rear wall, is lined with tiny white tiles that reflect light and give a beautiful liquid quality. Two crisply shaped landscape mounds define the space of the outdoor pool enclosure, simultaneously connecting and separating park and pool. Blue coloured stripes further accentuate the topographic quality of the project by de-emphasizing the tectonic distinction between building wall, pool concourse and bleacher seat. The ephemeral fence, yellow umbrellas, blue and white toddler shade structure, over-sized tree-seat, coloured trigeneration chimneys, palm trees and mound slide, bestow a playful character. They are the ‘follies’ within the Victorian park.
Client: City of Sydney
View Original