Archinect - News

In the ‘battle’ for Sydney’s brutalist Sirius building, public interest loses

2024-06-25T08:00:00-04:00

A decade ago the only way to secure a bed in Sydney’s brutalist icon, the Sirius building, was a proven need and time on the social housing waitlist. Now the price of admission starts at $1.55m – for a studio apartment. [...] Advocates who fought to save the building from the wrecking balls and from being sold see it now as the pinnacle of privatisation that failed the state’s most vulnerable.

The fate of Sydney’s martyred Rocks mirrors closely that of London’s Trelick and Balfron Towers, and the future of Singapore’s once caste-busting social housing system. As of our last reporting, the brutalist landmark has (finally, and forever) been saved from the wrecking ball — only to be turned over to private equity. The issue highlights what many see as the death of a progressive conception of planning, wherein accommodations for working-class people are placed in the center of cities and not the other way around.

"Sirius is the pointy end of the privatization of the city and entrenching 'ghettoes for the rich'," architect Philip Thalis puts it. "It’s bad for society if the best parts of the city are exclusively for people with the most means, particularly when allied to decreasing densities in those areas."

Meanwhile, the New South Wales state government just announced a "once in a generati...

Explore SANAA's Art Gallery of New South Wales expansion ahead of its grand opening

2022-11-30T15:35:00-05:00

Sydney's highly anticipated Art Gallery of New South Wales expansion will open its doors on Saturday, December 3, expecting the arrival of 15,000 people who have already registered to visit.

Designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning duo Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA, the new project is set to be the city's largest "cultural development since the dramatic opening of its Opera House nearly 50 years ago," as reported on Archinect back in May 2022 when updated project renderings were released.

Image © Iwan Baan/Courtesy of SANAA | The Art Gallery NSW.

Sejima and Nishizawa expressed their gratitude for the opportunity to work on the project. They shared with the press, "It has been a wonderful honor to design such an important public building in Sydney. Working closely with the Art Gallery of New South Wales team, we aimed to design an art museum building that is harmonious with its surroundings, one that breathes with the city, the park, and the harbor. We hope it will be a sp...

SANAA's Art Gallery of New South Wales expansion will deliver the city's largest cultural commission in 50 years

2022-05-05T12:59:00-04:00

SANAA has released renderings and added a new opening date for their expansion of Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW).

Touted as the city’s largest cultural development since the dramatic opening of its Opera House nearly 50 years ago, the Sydney Modern Project entails the creation of two new buildings connected by a public garden and will make its public debut on December 3rd.

Image: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA © Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2021

The expansion will increase the institution’s gallery spaces by almost double from 96,875 to 172,222 square feet, including a new 23,680-square-foot underground gallery which was repurposed from a decommissioned World War II-era oil tank. Overall, 70% of the new gallery is being constructed above existing structures.

Per SANAA, sustainable design initiatives include over 16,000 square feet of photovoltaic cells covering the Entranc...

A new museum for one of Australia's most serene artistic escapes

2022-02-05T09:00:00-05:00

The art ecosystem of Australia’s South Coast region got a significant boost over the weekend after the official unveiling of the new Bundanon Art Museum and Bridge for Creative Learning designed by Kerstin Thompson Architects.

The Melbourne-based firm worked with landscape architects Wraight Associates, Craig Burton, and sustainable design engineers Atelier Ten to create a multifaceted arts destination on an important 1,100-hectare (2,718-acre) property located in the Shoalhaven region of New South Wales.

Photo by Zan Wimberley

Designed to be a weather-resilient education center as well as an art museum and retreat destination, the entire development consists of a 500-square-meter (5,382-square-foot) museum, paddock-to-plate café, an education center, and lodging for up to 64 people. All this is inspired by the art of landscape painter Arthur Boyd, who, together with his wife Yvonne, gifted the property to the Australian people in 1993.

Photo by Zan Wimberley

The museum is split into ...

Fire safety reform: Australian state government to audit, replace and ban flammable cladding

2017-08-02T13:46:00-04:00

The state government will audit the use and ban the supply of the potentially flammable building cladding that led to London's deadly Grenfell Tower inferno, in what it styles as Australia's toughest fire safety reforms. [...] Better Regulation Minister Matt Kean said the government had undertaken an audit sample of about 180,000 residential and commercial towers constructed in NSW since the 1980s. About 1000 of those buildings "may have [unsafe] cladding", the Minister said.

"The [New South Wales] state government said it would introduce reform that would identify buildings encased in unsafe cladding," the Sydney Morning Herald reports, "require them to be inspected and force building owners to foot the bill for replacements and ban the sale and supply of unsafe material."

SANAA chosen to design NSW Art Gallery expansion

2015-05-27T14:04:00-04:00

Pritzker Prize laureates Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA were revealed today as the winners of an international competition to design the AUD$450 million expansion of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia. As part of the Sydney Modern Project, the expansion will upgrade the existing building into a global cultural landmark that connects the Gallery, the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Domain, the city, and Sydney Harbor.

SANAA scored the commission out of 12 notable shortlisters like Kengo Kuma, David Chipperfield, Herzog & de Meuron, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects, and Renzo Piano Building Workshop, to name a few.

SANAA incorporated the gallery site's surrounding topography and climate in their design, which features cascading platforms of sandstone and glass. The expansion will double the size of the 23,000 sq.m. gallery and will include new educational facilities, spaces for live performances and films, open exhibition spaces, and reintroduce natural day...

Sydney's NSW Gallery announces jurors for museum expansion competition

2014-09-05T13:14:00-04:00

It's rare for an Australian gallery to extend the call for an architect beyond local boundaries. But that's exactly what the Art Gallery of NSW has done in their national and international callout for the Gallery's transformation into 'an art museum for the 21st century'. As part of the Sydney Modern Project, The Art Gallery of NSW has announced the jurists to decide the architectural practice that will be responsible for the Gallery’s transformation.

"The jury members include Gallery Director, Michael Brand as well as Kathryn Gustafson, Michael Lynch, Toshiko Mori, Glenn Murcutt, Juhani Pallasmaa and Hetti Perkins."