Ewen Park Outdoor Learning Centre | Sam Crawford Architects

The Ewen Park Outdoor Learning Centre delivers a vibrant place for meeting, promotion of place, and environmental awareness.

Canterbury Bankstown Council’s brief required a simple yet dynamic shelter to provide the community of Hurlstone Park with a flexible use outdoor learning centre.

Referenced in the design is an appreciation of the history, hydrology, and ecology of the site; from strategic site planning initiatives through to the design details. Country centred design principles underpin the project.

The Outdoor Learning Centre is expressed as a pavilion with expansive roof that provides shelter to the central gathering space, as well as providing peripheral shade.

The playful edges of both the shelter and landscape afford flexibility in use, breadth of scope for inclusion of public art, and carefully integrate with adjacent developments in a manner that affords equitable use of the site and surrounds, with framed views and vistas of the Cooks River and park beyond.

Darlington Public School | fjcstudio

Darlington Public School, a small school located on the fringe of the City of Sydney near the University of Sydney and the eclectic neighbourhoods of Darlington and Newtown, has undergone a significant transformation. Linear brick structures, complementary to the local industrial masonry, house flexible learning hubs, a multipurpose hall, and support spaces, while a curvilinear perforated metal screen defines fluid, organic movement and gathering areas related to outdoor learning and play.

The redesign prioritises a contemporary learning environment, fostering a safe and inclusive atmosphere for the tightknit school community. Acknowledging diverse backgrounds, the design integrates the rich Aboriginal Peoples culture and artistic heritage, preserving aboriginal artworks with QR codes for ongoing curation.

Photographed murals from demolished walls are reproduced in the cladding, providing a tactile response and preserving cultural narratives. The landscape enhances learning by detailing indigenous plant names and uses, reinforcing the school’s commitment to a holistic educational experience.

Charles Street Square | lahznimmo architects with SMM

lahznimmo architects, with landscape architects Spackman Mossop Michaels, were engaged by the City of Parramatta to design Charles Street Square. The design resolves complex spatial issues including steep level changes, challenging flooding constraints, retention of mature trees, numerous stakeholders, indigenous and recent heritage and large volumes of pedestrians navigating between the river and city.

A series of sweeping curves respond to the fluid form of Parramatta River at the point it transitions from tidal and brackish to running fresh water at the Charles Street Weir. The curves form a series of terraces and ramps that mediate three distinct levels: Riverfront, Mid terrace and Street level providing a continuous accessible path and river facing Amphitheatre.

The Architectural elements take their cues from traditional maritime structures the timber and painted steel shade shelter bows towards the riverfront, echoing the curving terraces and responding to the bowl like cross section of the site.

Cedar on Collins | Kennedy Associates Architects

Cedar on Collins, a senior’s development by Fresh Hope Communities, designed by Kennedy Associates, represents Fresh Hope’s core values of Kindness, Connection, Optimism and Integrity.

These values underscore KAA’s design, delivering 56 units, 5 communal areas, 4 roof terraces and 4 activity rooms that harmoniously balance individuality with community, and calmness with activity.

The heart of the development is the central space, 3 interconnecting courtyards supporting the community through the interplay of built form with private and communal space.

Earth toned bricks, the excavated rock strata, characterize the lower levels.

A covered walkway integrates wayfinding, buildings, courtyards and common rooms.

Irregularly placed columns define the walkway, support the grey toned upper storey and provide intimate recesses along the journey.

Over 50% of the site is communal open space or landscaped area.

The client, in their response to the design, said.

“Through its intelligent design, the built form feels like home”.

Bronte Sisters | Sam Crawford Architects

Bronte Sisters comprises two dwellings, a heritage listed house, once altered by Andrew Burgess Architecture, and a neighbour, half of a pair of semidetached dwellings.

In order to serve our client’s brief for a flexible, multifunctional home for a young family and their overseas relatives, both have been restored, renovated, and, at the rear, opened to the landscape and physically connected via a timber deck.

Our approach was to create a pair of buildings that can be appreciated as one, or as individual dwellings, in dialogue, through a shared materiality and geometry.

From the street the existing houses are different yet sympathetic in scale and materiality. For the rear additions we have built on this relationship.

Blacktown Animal Rehoming Centre (BARC) | Sam Crawford Architects

The design of Blacktown Animal Rehoming Centre (BARC) balances the highly technical requirements of animal welfare with the need for a safe workplace and welcoming adoption centre.

BARC comprises a set of separate, elongated buildings; of fingers, reaching toward the woodlands of the Western Sydney Parklands. These fingers maximise cross ventilation and solar access, and prioritise proximity to nature, reducing stress and improving health of staff and animals.

Each building is drawn together and linked via a bold colour scheme and a 120m long, 4.5m high, multicolored artwork a collaboration with artist Lymesmith that evokes the plumage of native birds, and unifies, screens, and protects from the street the activity within.

As a council operated facility, BARC must accept all animals brought in by council rangers or citizens. Each is quarantined, given health checks, vaccinated, desexed, fed, washed; and then nursed back to physical and mental health ready for adoption.

Array at 1 Eden Park Drive | Architectus

Array at 1 Eden Park Drive is one of the newest commercial office buildings in Macquarie Park.

The client’s brief was clear; deliver a visually and technically unique building while also achieving high environmental standards.

The eastern face addresses Eden Park Drive’s central precinct, with the western façade looking toward Lane Cove Road. The building steps down to the east to complement the scale of the precinct.

Carefully chosen materials embrace views and connections to public spaces while shading offices. White terracotta cladding and black framed glazing accentuate the building’s form and dynamic façade pattern.

Using thermal mapping, the façades shading was oriented to block harsher sunlight from the north and west and open the building to its east. The parametric modelled solution balances performance and amenity.

Striving for high environmental targets, the distinctive design is also highly sustainable, with features including innovative cooling, best practice waste/recycling, internal/external bicycle parking, and end of trip facilities.

The Chancery

Quarry Box | MCK Architects

Coogee SLSC | AJC Architects