introduction / article / photos / award
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.
Jury
Comments: 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
AWARD article originally
published in Landscape
Australia 2-2001
introduction / article / photos / award
