The reinvention of Sydney Park

Sydney Park in Australia was once a cemetery of sorts for rusting car bodies; a place where televisions and fridges and other detritus of modern life went to die when no longer wanted by the city’s inhabitants. 

Over the years it’s gone through a long list of interventions, but it’s its most recent that’s grabbing international attention, winning Sydney-based practice Turf Design Studio and Environmental Partnership with collaborators, the international Architizer A+ Award for Architecture and Water.

Sydney Water Re-Use Project. Photo credit: Ethan Rohloff Photography

The park’s Water Re-Use Project is one of Sydney’s largest environmental projects to date, forming an integral part of the strategy behind Sustainable Sydney 2030, which aims to replace 30 per cent of 2030 potable water demand. 

The park now captures and cleans 850 million litres of stormwater a year, making it available for reuse. At the same time, the reinvigorated park provides much-needed open space for relaxation and recreation in this high-density inner-city neighbourhood.

People love it because it’s raw and natural. Photo credit: Ethan Rohloff Photography

Accepting the Architizer award Turf Design Studio Founder Mike Horne said: “Current times are a stark reminder that it’s never been more imperative for us to explore ways to creatively adapt existing and new spaces, wherever they may be, for the enhancement of life, and the public realm. Likewise, the celebration of water and our vital connection to it.”

Horne says the client’s(City of Sydney) brief was a straightforward engineering brief. “When we pitched for the job we saw an opportunity to make it a bit more than that.”

After an intensive period of ‘easing in’, the water re-use project is now fully operational and intrinsically merged with its park setting. The park’s fauna and flora is thriving, with new habitats created and existing ones protected and enhanced throughout the park. Photo credit: Ethan Rohloff Photography

Turf invited artists Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford to be part of the design team, whose expertise included hydrology, soils, ecology, engineering as well as landscape design.  Turpin and Crawford overcame initial reservations - artists working on an engineering project? - adding real value to the outcome, Horne says. 

"The project highlights the benefit of significant design team collaboration, successfully bringing together water sensitive urban design, new interconnecting civil infrastructure, environmental bio-retention and a local urban water reuse system."

Water is salvaged and gets pumped up over the hills through a series of environmental paddies through remediation beds that clipped onto the lagoon systems. Photo credit: Ethan Rohloff Photography

Native animal habitat was carefully considered and improved, with the wetlands now boasting the highest population of native bird species in the local area, including 22 wetland species.

The park is the only inner city off leash dog park, and Horne’s proud of the fact they co-exist with the wildlife. “The struggles we had in meeting both those objectives,” he says. “Yet we have a lot of wildlife. There’s fencing to stop the dogs getting into the wetlands but you don’t see it. There are a lot of layers of care and management making sure that everyone can co-exist together.”

The Cascades at Sydney Park. The park can be wild and dramatic and other times playful, but always engaging - celebrating Sydney Park’s water story through its visible ebbs and flows. Photography by Ethan Rohloff

Sydney Park’s proved hugely popular with all sorts of groups. “We wanted to engender a childlike attitude about coming to the water and being able to participate in the whole place. That falls under the wild play category. Kids these days are so contained and managed, and they don’t get that experience of just releasing and getting into a more experiential level of play.

“So creating safe, but perhaps not feeling that safe opportunities to explore, that unleashes your imagination that other more structured playgrounds can’t. It builds creativity.”