One Central Park is a new landmark mixed use project which forms a significant architectural gateway to Sydney’s downtown and is the centrepiece of the Central Park development. One Central Park comprises two residential towers and a lower retail podium addressing the site’s Broadway frontage. The built form is veiled by a combination of vertical gardens as well as green facades.
The landscape architects were engaged in early 2011 to design and develop the concept for the facades, as well the internal residential lobby, ground floor planting, podium garden, sunken courtyard and atrium planting for the retail levels.
Scope of the Landscape Architect: The vision to green the facades of the building was central to the whole architectural concept and the Landscape Architect look a major role as part of the design team to achieve this. The Landscape Architects were engaged in early 2011 to design and develop the initial concept for the facades, as well the internal residential lobby, ground floor planting, podium garden, sunken courtyard and atrium planting for the retail levels.
The key landscape elements at One Central Park include:
• A total of 2,700 linear planter boxes on balconies
• Internal sloping greenwall alongside retail escalators
• Sunken courtyard with access to retail and park
• Ground level landscape
• Level 5 podium garden with pool
• Level 29 cantilevered Sky Garden.
The Brief: The brief for One Central Park included a range of “green infrastructure” initiatives including green roofs, living facades, recycling demolished materials, adaptive re-use of buildings, sewer mining, water harvesting, tri gen, and car share. The initial concept by Principal Architect was for some of the green and varied neighbourhood character of adjacent Chippendale to ‘invade’ the site, extending through the central park and other public domain, to envelope the One Central Park building. This brief was further developed to include both a number of large vertical gardens (greenwalls) by the Botanist/Green Wall Designer and façade planting at each level of the building. The developer/client took a development risk on the suitability for the greening of such a high profile building to be a marketing point of difference and a new gateway for the city, as well as achieving the far-reaching sustainability objectives. The success of One Central Park in all of these aspects is now becoming apparent.
The masterplan at Central Park was revised and perfected in response to community feedback, to revolve around a highly activated courtyard space and spacious urban park, which, together with an intricate web of roads and pathways, draws people into the heart of Central Park and delivers its character and soul. It also returns the old Kent Brewery to the people of Sydney after 150 years of exclusion. Up to 77% of Central Park’s buildings will now deliver residential apartments, and approximately 23% will deliver an eclectic array of commercial spaces, cafes, restaurants, community amenities and a major new retail hub. An on-site water recycling plant, an on-site tri-generation energy plant and an enormous GoGet car-share ‘SuperPod’ will bring residents a step closer to achieving their dream of living a more sustainable lifestyle.
One Central Park is the largest green facade in Australia and whilst it has considerable microclimatic challenges, the planting is thriving. To ensure planting success, the planting design and technical development was tested through a rigorous process of research, testing, review and prototyping. One Central Park places the importance of green infrastructure in our cities literally front and centre to the thousands of people who see the building every day from inside and out. The constantly changing appearance of the hundreds of plant species also provides an invaluable connection with nature, plants and seasonal change.
Climate adaptation and urban greening is a fundamental issue challenging designers of the built form. One Central Park can inspire future urban projects to also use urban greening to create more environmentally and socially sustainable cities. The landscape design of One Central Park needed to be sustainable from an economic perspective, in the selection of durable materials and planting, the reuse of waste water for irrigation and ease of maintenance. Along with a range of other initiatives, these have helped the Central Park project become a benchmark in terms of the planning and design of a new urban precinct. We hope that this project will drive the development of ‘living architecture’ and green urban infrastructure that exceeds its achievements even further in the future.
The Central Park precinct as a whole includes a range of “green infrastructure” initiatives including green roofs, living facades, recycling demolished materials, adaptive re-use of buildings, sewer mining, water harvesting, tri gen, and car share. This will result in the following environmental benefits:
– All buildings minimum 5-star rating
– 93% of demolition materials recycled
– Smart metering to residences
– 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
– 90% carbon neutrality
– Recycled water supplies 100% of irrigation and100% of air conditioning water needs
– Meets all non-potable water needs and reduces load on public sewer system
Central Park strives to be Australia’s greenest and most self-sufficient mixed-use urban development, where sustainability is a way of life.
Entrant office name: ASPECT|OCULUS (Joint venture)
Project Name: One Central Park
Role of the entrant in the project: Lead Landscape Architects
Other design firms involved:
• Patrick Blanc, Botanist and Designer of Vertical Gardens
• Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Principal Architects for the Building
• PTW Architects, Architects for the Building
• JAAA and Turf Design Studio, Landscape Architects for the Masterplan
and Public Domain
Project location: 28 Broadway, Chippendale, Sydney, NSW 2008 Australia
Design year: 2011 – 2013
Year Built: 2014
Size:
• The overall size of the site is 5,960sqm.
• The sunken courtyard is 910 sqm.
• 2700 linear planter boxes creating around 7 linear kilometres of greenery around both towers wrapping all façades from level 2 to level 33.
