Australian Institute of Landscape Architects 
NATIONAL PROJECT AWARDS 2000

Project Award in Landscape Architecture:
Design – Public Open Space

Aerial view from south showing location of 1870s stone jetty (photo NSW NP&WS)

CAB Consulting Pty Ltd

Wharf Area Amphitheatre, Bradley’s Head, Sydney NSW

A finely rendered project, consistent and harmonious with the Bushland Sydney Harbour site, making a minimal statement with site materials. Modest and restrained, with high sensitivity to context, while resisting the temptation to make an obvious statement. An interesting development of the fine tradition of the Sydney School of landscape design

	Burrogi - wharf area carpark visitor facility improvments Design: CAB Consulting
Client & Construction Authority: NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) Landscape Architect: CAB Consulting Pty Ltd, Craig Burton Architect: Patonga Design, Ian Martin Consultant Stonemason: George Proudman Contractors: Track Constructions Pty Ltd, with NSW NPWS staff Cost: $253000 Completed: December 1998 Contact: Craig Burton, Director, CAB Consulting, PD Box 277, Church Point NSW 2105 Tel: 02 9997 1085 o Fax: 02 9997 1050 E-mail: craigburton@mail.cabconsulting.com.au
	View from uppert terrace overlooking amphitheatre, harbour and city photo: CAB Consulting

Overview
This project is one of several design projects undertaken by CAB CONSULTING PTY LTD for NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to improve visitor facilities on Bradley’s Headland as part of the greater Sydney Harbour National Park. This project was designed in 1997, and documented and implemented in 1998, involving a team of consultants, as listed. The amphitheatre opened in December 1998 and has been in constant usage from that date, used extensively as a viewing point for events held on Sydney Harbour, particularly fireworks displays and yachting events.

Design Concept
A sandstone, exposed aggregate and grassed amphitheatre with integrated stairway links the nineteenth-century built fabric of wharf and reconstructed sea wall with the upslope sandstone fortifications, walking tracks and commemorative installations—belonging to the former Bradley’s Head defensive fortifications, the former Ashton Park facilities and now a significant part of Sydney Harbour National Park.

Its location, within one of the former sandstone quarries on the headland, has a strong visual and spatial link with Sydney Harbour and the urban context of Sydney City
Its design, with a spine of stone steps, providing access to the foreshore, and integrated arcing stone ribs dissolving into the grassed slopes and floor of the former quarry, also allows a harbourside slope planted with species native to Bradley’s Head. This helps create a sense of naturalness when viewed from the harbour, to minimise the impact of built form and to avoid competing with the character of the adjacent stone fortifications.

As a natural fragment of Sydney Harbour, Bradley’s Head has been respected in the project by creating urban facilities on previously disturbed sites in a way that minimises intrusion to natural areas and emphasises the sense of naturalness, while, at the same time, contributing to the cultural history of the place.


The amphitheatre is one project in the program of Visitor Facilities Improvements under implementation by NSW NPWS within Sydney Harbour National Park.
The materials, particularly sand-stone, were chosen to harmonise with the natural environment and the character of the built fortifications and to reinforce the identity with the underlying sandstone geology of Sydney Harbour as a distinctive place. The detailing was developed so that non-skilled labour could implement the project, in the hope that the Service could apply sandstone as a material for built works elsewhere within Sydney Harbour National Park.

AWARD article originally published in Landscape Australia 2-2001