Developing architecture that appears quintessential and of its place is a legitimate aspiration for the city.

The development of 271 Elizabeth & 262 Castlereagh Street stands proximal to some of our city’s principal urban and historic fabric, and the architectural contribution to re-developing this site should have a regard for the history that surrounds it whilst also developing an attitude toward becoming transformative in that historical context.

If architecture is to contribute to the city, it can only do so whilst working from a base of keen observations about the details of the urban place in which it may exist, which observations would enable a prompting of desires about what a new work could be and how a new work is able to be one of a transformative dimension to the specific site and the greater artefact that is the city.

The site represents one of the last remaining opportunities realisable with tangible urban and architectural outcomes of significance for the re-development of the southern block of Elizabeth Street facing east towards Hyde Park and the ANZAC Memorial.

The idea of proportion and balanced composition is only able to be made visible by buildings which are walled, and in which is placed fenestration. The use of materials that are familiar to the site in colour and density as well as the use of shadow and balance is necessary for the development. Detail and an understanding of how day-light falls on surfaces through the seasons is a requirement of the design.

The nature of place should be enhanced in the most part with materials of the site or colours of that order. This is the golden red terana granite and the depth of colour in the amber glass cathedral windows to the ANZAC Memorial. It should also be in the colours of the trees and landscape of Hyde Park which the development looks out into and over towards St Mary’s Cathedral and the harbour beyond.

Every intention of how one is able to occupy a place is to be found in a plan. A plan has to do withutility and the nature of how one occupies a given space. It can also develop ideas about structure, cladding, environment, and the nature of one’s intentions as to the engagement with the outside.

Within the plan the living room must offer all the signals of generosity to the proposal. It should engage with the outside world in a way that is meaningful, and which enables that necessary
sense of connectivity to light, air, the street and the park.

Transformative work is able to present to our city a renewed image of its own past and such that those lost opportunities about which all knowing people are aware, can re-emerge in their latent potential as something once more possible. In this way the development may be subtle, precise and quiet in its presence whilst powerful in its message to the past.

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Render: DARCSTUDIO