New South Wales
Easy Street Commercial is the newest installment of Habitat, a staged mixed-use development located in the heart of the thriving Arts and Industry Estate of Byron Bay. Building upon the success of previous stages, this latest precinct offers an extension of the existing commercial hub and becomes an important axial connection to the residential zone on the outskirts of the site.
The buildings are purposefully dispersed to provide landscaped ‘in-between’ spaces for casual meetings and vertical circulation, and rooted in the local industrial and agricultural vernacular. Passive properties of good sub-tropical design underpin sophisticated active environmental systems, with flexible outdoor zones creating key nodes throughout the planning of the site.
The new precinct delivers an active public domain with amenity, landscaping, parking with maximum permeability to its surrounding context, and provides a highly necessary public anchor to the diverse demographic living and working within Arts and Industry Estate.
Having worked closely with Dom since the inauguration of DFJ Architects in 2010, I consider the continuing development of Habitat as an example of a highly successful collaboration between architect, client and community. As a significant exercise in long-term masterplanning, the project has spanned many years and design iterations that respond to inevitable fluctuations in scope, environmental considerations and social needs. Easy Street Commercial extends upon the visionary – and at the time novel – conception of a mixed-use village within a zone of Byron Bay that lacked a centralised node of activity with supported commercial, residential and public programming.
The Australian Institute of Architects acknowledges First Nations peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, and skies of the continent now called Australia.
We express our gratitude to their Elders and Knowledge Holders whose wisdom, actions and knowledge have kept culture alive.
We recognise First Nations peoples as the first architects and builders. We appreciate their continuing work on Country from pre-invasion times to contemporary First Nations architects, and respect their rights to continue to care for Country.
