HASSELL | Projects - Victoria Park Public Domain

Victoria Park Public Domain

Client Landcom

Discipline Landscape Architecture

Expertise Sport and Leisure
Urban Strategies

Scale 24 ha

Year 2002

Location Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Status Completed

Collaboration Government Architects Office of NSW / Turpin Crawford Studio (Artists)

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Details

Exploring the challenge

Prior to European development, the site was part of a large wetland and lagoon ecological system that extended from Centennial Park to Botany Bay, known as the Botany Swamp. Watkins Tench described it in 1789 as one of the finest meadows in the world, but since then the site's ecosystems have gradually deteriorated. The site was developed firstly as a racecourse in the 1800s, and then for heavy industry. The large flat land, and seemingly limitless supply of good quality ground water attracted development, but these uses were unsustainable.

Victoria Park is now a 24 hectare mixed-use development, incorporating medium and high-density housing, commercial and retail facilities for a population of 5,000.

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An individual approach

The design concept embodied four key principles that relate to its place: site-wide environmental strategy, interpretation of the natural wetland systems, site connectivity and community development. In the public domain, the east-west streets feature median wetlands that facilitate the water management system. North-south streets are more traditional avenues. This was a direct response to solar access into streets and allowed for the introduction of bio-swale treatments into the wider east-west streets. The parks have a richness in spatial form and materials, unified by the common thread of indigenous planting of wetland species, and a landform that is moulded to accommodate water retention requirements. Public artworks express and celebrate improved water quality achievements, and plant selection and habitat creation consistently support the local ecosystem and promote biodiversity.

An innovative response

The project exceeded expectations by virtue of its innovative water management system and its integration into the high-quality living environment. Consequently, the project has become a benchmark for water sensitive urban design in an urban context.

Significantly, the public domain design commission proceeded simultaneously with the design and documentation of infrastructure, ensuring that the urban design and its water management system was coordinated with the roads and services design.

Definition in detail

The project is unique in its site-wide focus on water management and its integration with the public domain.

The bio-retention swale infiltration system regulates the quality of first flush water from the site's public roads. The filtered water is intercepted, recycled and visibly exposed at the site's notable water features at Joynton Park.

Plant selection and habitat creation consistently support the local ecosystem and promote biodiversity. Native species are predominantly used in streets and parks to re establish endemic communities on the site and minimise maintenance requirements.

Beyond sustainability

The establishment of an ecologically sustainable water management system on the site is in itself a significant contribution to the culture of the built environment. That this has been integrated into a high-quality and dense urban environment provides a benchmark for development throughout Australia.

Victoria Park provided proof that natural systems, or constructed ecologies can work in urban environments. The value of natural systems to sustain the land has often been the hallmark of rural development, but deemed unworkable in urban situations. Victoria Park redefines the role of natural systems, and exposes the shortcomings in the ideas of landscape as ornament.

The water management strategy is seamlessly integrated with the urban design concept. The street layout provides simple and legible connectivity throughout the site with appropriate lighting and signage elements. Drainage structures within the swales are combined with elegant bridge structures and an attractive median planted with a strong palette of native and endemic species.

The park's designs create a variety of exceptional settings for the enjoyment of the new community. New plazas, playgrounds and publicartworks are combined with the provision of large open spaces and amphitheatres that meet the need to detain large quantities of stormwater on the site. The designs make a contemporary contribution to the creation of a high-quality public domain.

Its open space not only provides a valuable recreation resource for the community, it also sets about restoring and reconstructing the ecosystems that once prevailed.

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