In a recent design competition the winners have been announced to shape a major development site in Parramatta. With over 150 submissions from across the globe, the public are now encouraged to vote on the most impressive design by visiting the gallery here.
Thank you to Mehrafarin Mehdizadeh for supplying this article to The Planning Boardroom.
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Parramatta City Council would like to congratulate to the 2011 Ideas on Edge winners, who have all taken out the top spot in this year’s competition:
Mr Peter Bednar and Zack Cooley – Arkansas, USA (Parramatta Islands)
Mr Rick Hill, Leon McBride and Josh Spillane – Brisbane (Vertical Farming and Laneway Jetties)
Mr Daniel Griffin and Mark Tyrrell – Sydney (Innovation Ecosystem)
The winners were selected after hours of deliberation and awarded for their innovation, the ability to leverage on the site’s waterfront exposure, river activation and viability for a commercial development.
The Ideas on Edge competition received more than 150 entries from countries, including designs from the United Arab Emirates, China, Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom and America. More than 40 per cent of submissions were international.
The Ideas on Edge competition which ran from March – May 2011, called on people all over the world to present an innovative, bold and creative vision for the development of a site covering 2.2Ha, located between Lennox and Bernie Banton bridges. It is connected to transport, shopping facilities and Parramatta’s thriving dining precinct, ‘Eat Street’.
The judging panel was chaired by Chris Brown, Chairman of the Economic Development Committee, and comprises of Professor Janice Reed, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Western Sydney; columnist and author, Elizabeth Farrelly, Sydney-based architect and Executive Chairman of Hassell, Professor Ken Maher and Roman Dechnicz, life member of Parramatta Chamber of Commerce.
Professor Maher said the top three winners demonstrated an ability to capture the City’s relationship with the River.
“Parramatta Islands” for instance takes advantage of Parramatta’s waterfront access, by opening up the area to business, culture and social life, based on similar principles adopted in the cities of Venice, Amsterdam and Suzhou.
Another winning submission “Vertical Farming and Laneway Jetties” was recognised for its ability to reduce transport costs.
The ‘Innovation Ecosystem’ submission was chosen as a winner after the judges found that “it brings nature and commerce together and encompasses mixed-use development, including housing, an aged care facility and just about everything you can think of.”
“What I look for in a City is that it’s a place where you can explore, have fun, engages you and has mystery. I think that the winning submissions really capture that,” columnist Elizabeth Farrelly said.
Other submissions wowed judges with their creative flair and ultra-modern vision, including an ‘Urban Experience Centre’ which resembled an oversized, purple amethyst and another featured an open-air theatre resembling a theme park.
Parramatta City Council will now take on board all of the ideas submitted when creating a functional brief for the site. Council will also consider the long term master planning of the whole site. An Expression of Interest will be issued later this year.
The public can view the Ideas on Edge Exhibition at Riverside Theatre (Church Street, Parramatta) from Thursday 9 June to Thursday 23 June.
The public can vote online or at the Exhibition for their favourite design. A People’s Choice Award and $5,000 will be awarded to the submission selected by the public. Check out the gallery to choose your favourite.
Source: Parramatta City Council
Sydney based Mark Tyrrell Studio has collaborated with Daniel Griffin to create a winning entry to the international design competition Ideas on Edge Parramatta. The competition received over 150 entries, 40% international and the remainder from around Australia. There were 3 equal winners.
Their winning concept focuses upon blurring the physical and metaphysical boundaries between the local culture of Parramatta, and its local ecosystem, finding moments of drama at their junction.
The scheme recognises that the site occurs at a brackish point of the river where the fresh water from the inland meets the salt water from the coast. This mixing of waters produces a highly diverse ecosystem at a local level. It is a place where species of fish meet, where salt and freshwater tolerant plant species are found and where hundreds of birds are attracted to the mix.
Interestingly, the site also occurs at a key urban point where the busy urban spine of Church Street meets the river. Unfortunately, Parramatta has progressively turned its back on its river, which has become a forgotten drain rather than a living, changing natural focus for the city.
The design breaks down a series of abrupt and divisive river edges by laying a generative grid over river and land. The grid resolves itself into a variety of functional built elements but also acts as a conceptual tool to blur land and water.
Next, a series of ‘program intensifiers’ are layered on the design. Local culture is intensified through the creation of an urban incubator for innovation and ideas. This takes the form of small studio spaces, research labs, aged and childcare, performance spaces and university and corporate support shopfronts. Together, this small-scale urbanism plugs into the disused rear of shops and creates a humming cultural district which moves out over the river.
The ecology of the site is intensified through a large sculptural building called ‘The Birdshell’. The building is a conference centre, but its façade accommodates and is designed around a celebration of urban birdlife. Hard concrete becomes a soft and living veil. From within the conference centre, birds create a shadow play on the walls. The form of the shell is designed to both amplify the varied birdcalls and to draw in and cool breezes from the river.
The site is allowed to flood regularly, and stormwater is collected in a mosaic of raingardens which treat stormwater from the urban core of the design and release it clean to the river. Ultimately, the river has no edge in the final proposal; it is an urbanism ‘of ‘its river rather than ‘beside’ a river.
The Parramatta City Council has been talking about turning Parramatta into Venice since mid 2010. However, Parramatta council does not need to copy the European model. Griffin and Tyrrell’s winning scheme aims to show that Parramatta has its own unique and Australian landscape identity, which should be fused with its own local culture to create a strong urbanism suited to Sydney’s second city, not Italy’s.