UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress
O-0268 Reimagining Sydney Harbour
Lochhead, Helen* Professor and Dean, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney, Australia
Abstract Sydney Harbour is arguably the city’s only great public space; and perhaps its most contested. This paper will elucidate how social activism, aligned with vision, public patronage and brave design interventions have shaped Sydney over 200 years into the memorable harbour city it is today. Since the 1980s however, large-scale private development facilitated by government has progressively posed major challenges. The paper highlights the need to remain vigilant if the harbour is to retain its valued status.
Keywords: urban regeneration, sustainable development, landscape, waterfronts, public space
1. Introduction
Sydney, Australia’s largest metropolis at 4million people, is one of the world’s most extraordinary harbour cities. A 320-kilometre shoreline is ringed with the city’s most valued landscapes and places, cultural icons, infrastructure and development. The harbour is arguably the city’s only great public space; and perhaps also its most contested. Yet, despite this tension, it has retained an enduring resilience, beauty and value. The power of social activism, conscious design and continued investment in the public domain have all been instrumental in sustaining these values. But now, the accelerated pace to become a global city has been compounded by an unprecedented scale and quantum of new development that has raised the stakes. The future of the harbour is at a critical point if the city is to balance the imperatives of economic growth and identity with the intrinsic qualities that make it appealing as a livable, global city.
The objectives of this paper are to (i) illustrate through a chronological overview of Sydney Harbour’s urban evolution, the competing tensions between environmental and development agendas, (ii) demonstrate the role of social activism in positively shaping and calibrating the planning and design of the waterfront (iii) reveal the paradigm shift that is now impacting Sydney Harbour’s distinctiveness and amenity. The paper is drawn from research and insights gleaned over 2 decades working as a design practitioner with government agencies and is supported by primary and secondary sources to provide context.
2. Context
There is no doubt the public domain, with its competing demands, is contested space and Sydney Harbour, being the jewel in Sydney’s crown, is the most contested space in this city. This has meant, over many years, conflicts between various interests seeking to either exploit, or protect the intrinsic values of the harbour shoreline. The civic conscience safeguarding the genius loci of Sydney Harbour has most often been voiced by provocateurs such as architects, planners and conservationists (including resident action groups and trade unions) who have not only challenged the prevailing pro-development interests, but proposed alternative ideas. Not all these proposals have been good, and not all have been realized, but harbour speculations have been a constant in Sydney’s recurring cultural narrative and ensured robust debate. Many constructive
* Contact Author: Helen Lochhead
UNSW Sydney Tel: +613856148 e-mail: [email protected]
UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress 1 proposals have been achieved with the alignment of successive colonial then state and local governments with clear commitment to public policy and projects of vision, substance, and design intent. As a result, Sydney has a legacy of significant projects shaping its unique urban landscape. Iconic developments such as John Bradfield’s Sydney Harbour Bridge1 and Joern Utzon’s Sydney Opera House2 with its sail-like roof forms have elevated the city’s positioning on the global stage; it is difficult to imagine the city without them.
Other discrete actions and policies driven by broader public values have cumulatively resulted in much more than the sum of their parts. Take for example, the enviable necklace of foreshore parklands, aggregated over 200 years through various means from reservation through resumption, reclamation and restoration. Some lands, alienated from the early colonial era for military purposes have ceded large tracts of bushland to later generations. Other redundant industrial sites, now rehabilitated, have been hard won. The most memorable of these projects are imbued with the palimpsest of the place, each intervention contributing another bespoke layer of experience and meaning.
What is evident is that the harbour’s enduring resilience, beauty and value is in no small part due to strategic investment in the public domain by federal, state, and local governments – and more often than not in response to community voices and campaigns. Achieving this has not been easy and continues to pose challenges to the harbour as public space.
3. Colonial imaginings of Sydney Harbour
The early pattern of Sydney’s development was driven by the geography of a drowned river valley that shaped its distinct form and character, of ridge-top roads and street spurs that run down to the water, of green headlands and protected bays and anchorages. Despite the city’s early focus on the harbour as a place of commerce, transport and industry - a resource to exploit - there was a counter narrative from the earliest days of colonial settlement. Tim Bonyhady offers the proposition of an emergent conservationist view from the late th 3 19 C borne out through subsequent actions to preserve the foreshores, often in the face of opposition.
As early as 40 years after European settlement Governor Darling imposed a 100ft waterfront reservation on all foreshore grants. Whether this was envisaged for public benefit or mere utility, from the outset, these reservations were incrementally alienated by development. Sydney, like all growing cities, even with the best of intentions, has had to deal with the politics of competing agendas throughout its history: economic growth versus environmental protection, public versus private interests, conservation versus renewal.
At key moments, these tensions initiated civic awakening, debate and protests that resulted in pivotal transformations. For example, in the late 19thC, budding environmentalists and North Sydney Council were instrumental in stopping mining and conserving the Cremorne peninsula in 1889. Cremorne Point Reserve, is one example of how the 100ft reservation was transformed into public foreshore parkland.
Public debate, as well as popular commentary across the decades testifies to the value placed on this extraordinary asset and the deep concern about the alienation of public waterfront land. Progressive legislation has aided and abetted the cause – the Public Parks Act (1854) and subsequent amendments in 1884 were recognition of public recreation as a value in its own right.4 The anti-privatization of the harbour foreshores movement was bolstered by champions such as Niels Nielsen, the NSW Secretary of Lands, who resumed Neilson Park and Bradley’s Head.5 This came at a time when the town planning movement was set to make its mark lobbying government to acquire public open space for the benefit of all citizens. This earliest chapter in Sydney’s history was a barometer for the future. An imperative to act, to challenge the status quo, was borne from adversity, both real and perceived, as well as opportunity.
UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress 2
4. Reimagining in the first half of the 20th century
At the turn of the 20th century an imperative to drive economic growth unleashed powerful forces of industrialization and modernization. A range of actions and reactions were triggered. Slum clearance and redevelopment of the overcrowded Rocks precinct, the site of Sydney’s earliest white settlement, was triggered following the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900. This process of cleansing and regeneration was underscored by a drive to shape a more productive and dignified use of valuable urban space. The Sydney Harbour Trust was created with a remit that included efficient harbour management and the wholesale redevelopment of the wharves in Darling Harbour and Walsh Bay. Sydney’s main maritime gateway, Circular Quay at Sydney Cove, was also targeted, a recurring hotspot in the city’s history.
The 1908-09 Royal Commission for the Improvement of the City of Sydney and its Suburbs provided a stocktake of the city’s major infrastructure needs and collated an extensive inventory of public works for decades to come.6 The focus was again on reimagining the waterfront for efficiency, health and - more as a by-product – beautification. These large infrastructure projects were the first of many, including the Harbour Bridge in the inter-war period, that definitively shaped the character of Sydney’s inner harbour. These city-making initiatives that delivered other significant public benefits including open space and public housing.
While such major government initiatives have helped shape the modern harbour, community-based movements have tempered wholesale renewal. From the early 1900s, a counter narrative expressed regret at the passing of the historic fabric of the city and sought to retain valued heritage. Protests at the alienation of waterfront land for private use injected early citizen vigilance entwining environmental concerns and right to the city thinking. Community campaigns eventually led to the progressive introduction of foreshore building lines by Sydney Harbour municipalities providing some checks over inappropriate, over-scaled development.
Protection of harbour lands for recreation and scenic values was thus a strong strand in the harbour narrative. A milestone in formalizing a green web for metropolitan Sydney was the 1948 County of Cumberland Planning Scheme.7 A core responsibility was the acquisition of open space with strategic tracts of waterfront resumed in the 1950-60s. The image of Sydney stitched together by networks of waterways and green spaces has 8 been consolidated through more ongoing programs such as the Sharing Sydney Harbour Access Plan.
5. New awakenings heightened by economic boom
With the economic and population boom of the 1960s came renewed pressure on the redevelopment of the waterfront. Once again, The Rocks was an epicentre for renewal. The resumptions of the early 1900s had made this precinct a valuable and prominent property asset primed for valorization. Commercial pressures prevailed. The Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority (SCRA) was established to realize this potential. This marked a transition in government focus from infrastructure provision to development facilitation.
SCRA’s modernist 1970 scheme with high rise-buildings, superblocks and multi-level circulation systems rallied the anti-development movement.9 Local residents with the support of the Builders Labourers Federation formed an alliance with environmental activists and heritage conservationists which launched the first Green Ban10. The Green Bans involved stop-work orders on contentious development sites that threatened the identity of community, valued open spaces, affordable housing and built heritage. This grass roots action ensured a different more layered future for this and other precincts and accelerated demands for livability and public participation which continue today. One related government initiative was a new planning legislation with more explicit consideration of social and green values. Despite many modifications, the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 still remains the basis of NSW’s planning system.
UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress 3 Boom times brought other opportunities. Technological innovations in industry and shipping containerization transformed the working harbour and led to the emergence of new service and manufacturing industries not reliant on foreshore access. As redundant industrial lands became available, new initiatives and policies were put in place to clean up brownfield sites, improve water quality, support more foreshore access, and ensure the harbour remained a key recreational waterway.
With the churn of vacated industrial sites into higher and better uses, a mix of housing, commercial and cultural uses emerged along the waterfront with new open space and heritage adaptation. The most prescient affirmation of the harbour setting as a people place was the conception of the Opera House on Bennelong Point. Secured through an international design competition, it signaled a cultural coming of age for Sydney. The building transformed the place into a national icon and Australia’s most popular tourist destination.
But the real gains have continued to be incremental and opportunistic. There have been important additions to the waterfront open space network both in quality, character and number, through the regeneration of former industrial sites on Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River. They range from the 1970s makeovers of the working waterfronts at Peacock and Longnose Points, to the robust reinterpretations of industrial heritage in the 1990s at Glebe, Ballast and Pyrmont Points (hard fought community wins) to the nuanced regeneration of former military lands by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.11 The makeover of Cockatoo Island, an industrial shipyard, into a recreational and cultural venue attracting World Heritage listing is exemplary.
6. Towards the Global city 1980s-2000
From the late 20th century major events also played a part in the transformation of the harbour and heralded in an era of publically sponsored megaprojects. At the same times, these large-scale projects helped to recalibrate a civic focus on public life. The pursuit of design quality moved from being a perceived barrier to economic growth to a pre-requisite for global competitiveness, international investment and tourism.
Darling Harbour was a flagship urban renewal project of Australia’s Bicentennial in 1988 with its iconic maritime-influenced architecture attracting local and international acclaim. It was, however, essentially an imported model of waterfront development, complete with IMAX theatre and the requisite festival marketplace parachuted directly from the United States. In fact, James Rouse, guru of US waterfront revitalization in the 80s, was a consultant to the NSW Government.12 It was an ambitious bid to make Sydney an international convention and tourist destination complete with high design aspirations realized by Sydney notables.
Although a popular success, Darling Harbour has been plagued by economic difficulties leading to multiple makeovers. Its failings were rooted in its disconnect from the city streets that feed it, and its lack of real city uses. However, it did provide an egalitarian environment, with a maritime museum and aquarium, new cultural drawcards, and new waterfront promenade and public spaces on the west side of the CBD. For 1980s Sydney it was, for all its flaws, a considerable achievement. Importantly, it set up the framework for future waterfront connections to Pyrmont to the west and Barangaroo, Walsh Bay, The Rocks and Circular Quay to the east.
Circular Quay was also transformed through the 1980s. The opening of the Opera House in 1973 was not accompanied by any substantive improvement to its setting. The State Government did nothing within its jurisdiction until goaded into action by the 1983 Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Cities in Conflict conference focused on the future of Sydney Cove. Subsequent ideas were broadcast through both an RAIA 13 14 competition and publication, Quay Visions and the City of Sydney’s own speculations, Sydney Spaces.
The debate pressured the State to develop its own proposition for the precinct. Recommendations were developed by the Government Architect’s Office with a consortium of prominent architects as a Bicentennial
UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress 4 project to create a continuous promenade around Sydney Cove from the Opera House to the Harbour Bridge.
The reimagining of Circular Quay was unsurprisingly not without controversy. A1990 redevelopment proposal for the east quay privileging private commercial, residential and hotel uses, incited damming public and media response. With an 11th-hour involvement of the Prime Minister, a deal was struck with the City Council to lower the height of the proposed buildings through an air-space rights transfer between the site and Council’s land. This trade-off guaranteed public access via an imposing public colonnade to complete the promenade.
Tangentially, these speculations and projects revealed the competing interests and complex overlapping jurisdictions that hindered positive change around the inner harbour and foreshadowed the formation of the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority (SHFA) in 1998. SHFA facilitated a more holistic approach to the design and development of the waterfront that was enabled by a new State Environmental Planning Policy 56 (SEPP 56). A Sydney Harbour Design Review Panel was also formed to lift the design standard of development around the Harbour. The Panel was central to the considered rejuvenation of many sites including the Walsh Bay wharves, now adapted into a lively mixed use precinct where the heritage is integral rather than subordinated to the new. The Panel’s consistent application of design principles responsive to the character of the urban fabric and terrain, ensuring new development stepped down to the water so views were shared and the waterfront was publically accessible to all, was instrumental in achieving this step change.
In the western reaches of the harbour, at Homebush Bay, Government also transformed one of the most contaminated industrial sites in Sydney, in the lead up to the Olympics. Thanks to the mobilization of the design professions and conservation group, Greenpeace, guidelines for the ’green games’ were mandated to make Sydney Olympic Park an exemplar of environmental remediation, sustainability and place-making.15 It included not only world-class sporting venues but the largest remediated urban parkland in Australia.16 This was the first large-scale adoption of urban sustainability principles in Australia. Its integration of quality design, 17 a generous public realm, and high environmental standards made it a landmark project.
6. The 21st century shift
The 21stC marked another shift in city shaping. The global city drivers moved towards commercial projects of more ambition and market-led infrastructure provision shifting the focus from public to private interests, from government as promoter to government as facilitator, and from bespoke to universal, all with mixed results.
For the 2000 Olympics, the Government invested in city improvements with the public agenda front and centre. The creation of Sydney Olympic Park, and the refresh of both Circular Quay and Darling Harbour affirmed this commitment. The second wave of makeovers of Darling Harbour tried to enhance the public realm and connectivity to the city while meeting commercial demand; the overtly successful Darling Quarter is a notable example.18 Disappointingly, the latest iteration of Darling Harbour is dominated by mega-scale exhibition and convention facilities and new towers that overpower the public domain.
This same upscaling trend is evident elsewhere with the importation of new international development paradigms conspiring to homogenize the waterfront. Witness the redevelopment of East Darling Harbour’s Barangaroo development.19 Here, despite an international design competition and a winning scheme responsive to the context, the stakes were so high, that the scheme was progressively morphed into a more market-led plan. Developer and political interests aligned to compromise a compelling proposition that was an extension of the city - not just a new address. Despite excellent sustainability credentials and engagement of respected architects, the new built environment is poignantly reminiscent of any number of docklands-style waterfront redevelopments across the globe. Even the simulated headland park purporting to anchor the development to pre- colonial Sydney Harbour was much-debated as unnecessary artifice. Overall, in reality,
UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress 5 Barangaroo is evolving as a conspicuous enclave disconnected from the city in form, scale and expression. It imbues an international urban brand more than a distinctive local identity.
More recently, with the impetus of over $6 billion worth of major transport, infrastructure and private redevelopment scheduled around Circular Quay, there is an opportunity to harness private and public investment differently and catalyze a holistic strategy for the precinct. Other inner harbour sites have also opened up for redevelopment, such as the Bays Precinct.20 However, the devolution of SHFA in 2015 into new entities, PropertyNSW and UrbanGrowth sounds a warning. If visionary and enduring projects are to be realized in the future, there will need to be a rethink of how planning and development decisions are made around Sydney Harbour. Unless better, place-responsive balances are struck - between private and public interest, commercial and environmental needs, new and historic fabric - expedient outcomes will prevail.
7. Conclusion
The value of Sydney Harbour cannot be underestimated. That it is Sydney’s great public space is no accident. The power of social activism, conscious design and investment in the public domain are all key contributors. Maintaining the identity and resilience of Sydney Harbour depends on sustaining the unique and particular; that is Sydney's cache. The challenge is ensuring that future development of the remaining waterfront lands, recognizes the ecological and cultural palimpsest, prioritizes contextual planning and design, and shapes the harbour setting as an inclusive public place for the benefit of all. Predictable, market-led and imported paradigms as well as ill-considered ad-hoc development, need to be continuously challenged to counter-balance touted economic benefits. As this historical overview signals, reimagining Sydney Harbour is a work in progress.
References
1 Spearritt, P. (2007) Sydney Harbour Bridge: A Life, UNSW Press. 2 Watson, A, ed. (2006) Building a Masterpiece: The Sydney Opera House, Powerhouse Publishing. 3 Bonhady, T. (1998) The Colonial Earth, Melbourne University Press. 4 NSW Public Parks Act (1854). See http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_act/ppao1854n33184/ 5 Nairn, B. (1988) Nielsen, Niels Rasmus Wilson (1869–1930), Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nielsen-niels-rasmus-wilson-7849/text13633 6 Spearritt, P. (2000) Sydney’s Century: A History, UNSW Press. 7 Winston, S. (1957) Sydney’s Great Experiment, Angus and Robertson. 8 Sharing-Sydney-Harbour-Program. See http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/About-Us/Our-Programs/Sharing-Sydney-Harbour-Program 9 Toon, J. (1986) Sydney: Restoring Australia’s historic core, Built Environment, 12(3), 153-164. 10 Burgmann, M. and V. (2017) Green Bans, Red Union: The saving of a city, New South. 11 Bailey, G.N. (2001) Sites unseen: Exploring the future of Trust lands on Sydney Harbour, Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. 12 Searle, G. (2013) Global City Challenges: A view from the field, in M. Acuto and W. Steele, eds. Global City Challenges, Palgrave, 202-221. 13 Quay Visions: A publication for the CAA/RAIA Conference, 13-17 June, 1983, Sydney, Royal Australian Institute of Architects. 14 Sydney Spaces: 29 concepts for the city's streets, squares and parks (1995) Sydney City Council. 15 Greenpeace, http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/PageFiles/301173/guideline.pdf 16 Wikipedia, Sydney Olympic Park, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Olympic_Park 17 Johnson, C. (1999) Shaping Sydney: Public Architecture and Civic decorum, Hale and Iremonger. 18 The Urban Design Protocol for Australian Cities, see http://urbandesign.org.au/case-studies/darling-quarter/ 19 Harris, M. (2018) Barangaroo: A Sydney megaproject, in K. Ruming, ed. Urban Regeneration and Australian Cities, Routledge, in press. 20 The Bays Precinct urban renewal, see https://thebayssydney.com.au/
UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress 6