Barangaroo Station Park by Arcadia Landscape Architecture

Opened in 2024, more than 16,000 people a day pass through Sydney Metro Barangaroo station, commuting to Barangaroo’s commercial and dining precinct, the headland park or through to Sydney’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Precinct in The Rocks. The landscape design at Barangaroo Station Park, with its stunning backdrop of Sydney Harbour, has created an iconic and memorable station plaza and park that instills the site’s heritage and Indigenous culture through artwork and interpretation.
The overarching goal for the design team of Sydney Metro Barangaroo station was to create an iconic and memorable station interface with world class transport infrastructure. The station interface needed a remarkable contemporary design, respectful of the area’s heritage fabric and well-integrated with the existing public domain, including Nawi Cove and Barangaroo Park.

The landscape design responds to a complex site with a multitude of stakeholders to deliver a significant and interconnected public domain. The landscape architects and heritage consultants supported Sydney Metro through the multiple project interfaces and public domain design, parkland, streetscape, plazas, cycleways, planting, and the heritage and interpretation elements.

Extensive research, consultation, and collaboration with First Nations Knowledge Holders were conducted to ensure interpretation strategies adhered to the significant cultural heritage of the area. Archaeologists identified methods of integrating information, incorporating research and graphic material to illustrate and express the historic significance of the archaeological findings from the site.

A Heritage Interpretation Plan for Sydney Metro, identified key themes for interpretation at the site:
/ Aboriginal Histories: sharing stories of Barangaroo the woman, Aboriginal fisherwomen, fishing practices and technologies
/ Maritime heritage: sharing the Barangaroo Boat discovery, boat construction and the maritime history of the site.
/ The changing landscape: communicating the history of the natural environment before invasion.

The centrepiece of Barangaroo Station Park is the interpretive seating wall, which celebrates Nawi Cove’s traditional use by Gadigal peoples as a fishing ground, creating a unique element in the public domain. Precast white concrete seeded with oyster shells collected within the Sydney Basin references the shell fishing hooks used by the expert Aboriginal fishing women who fished from nawi (bark canoes) in the cove. Writing on the seat welcomes visitors to Gadigal Country.

Working with key stakeholders, heritage consultants developed narratives that could be explored at the site, where Aboriginal history of the space is shared on interpretive signs. The exceptional life of Barangaroo is relayed on one sign, while detailed accounts of the fishing practices, including the use of nawi and the naming of Nawi Cove are featured on others.

Landscaping and plant species are a key feature of the Nawi Parklands, which has created an accessible green space planted with species from the area before European occupation. The lawn area lends itself to be a meeting place, which the Barangaroo area has also come to be regarded by the Indigenous community. The curve to the back of the lawn references the shape of the barra hook whose form was carved from turban shell to catch fish. Visitors feel a living connection to the Indigenous narrative within the space.

During 2018, archaeological investigations for the Barangaroo Station site unearthed the Barangaroo Boat. The clinker-built timber vessel had been abandoned beside boat builder William Langford’s wharf in the late 1830s / early 1840s. The boat was disassembled in 2018 and transferred to a purpose-built facility for its conservation and permanent display at the Australian Maritime Museum.

Built in 1820s, the boat was the oldest discovery of its kind in New South Wales and is a key feature of the interpretive elements at Barangaroo Station. A paving inlay of the ‘Barangaroo Boat’ is designed into the landscape as a feature place marker of the plaza. Made of cast iron, the 8 x 3 metre 2D representation of the boat as it was found is integrated into the paving where it last stood. The boat inlay is a historical legacy, designed to connect visitors to the site’s heritage with a visual narrative and educational insight into Sydney’s past.

The Barangaroo landscape was dramatically altered by maritime use, with mid-1800s land reclamation and increased activity resulting in multiple human-altered shorelines. Archaeologists also discovered the components of a seawall, and the foundations of Cuthbert’s boatyards once found on site. As outlined in the Heritage Interpretation Plan, the landscape architect designed a brass ground inlay that outlines the location of the seawall and shoreline in 1865.

• All landscape architecture offices involved in the design of landscape:
Arcadia Landscape Architecture

• All architecture offices involved in the design:
Foster + Partners: Design architect
Architectus: AEO and executive architect
Artefact Heritage and Environment: Heritage consultants
METRON consortium, Mott MacDonald and Arcadis: Project lead and engineering design
SESL: Soil consultants
Stuart Pittendergh: Horticulturist

• Other credits:
Yerrabingin: First Nations design jams and consultation
Jiwah: First Nations planting strategy co-design/collaboration

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