Project Overview

As a multi-residential development, Pavilions has reimagined urban life at Sydney Olympic Park, and its landscape design has proved integral to its design excellence and ultimate success. At the gateway to the rejuvenated Sydney Olympic Park precinct, four buildings embrace their scale and diversity to sit proudly in the landscape, oriented around 4500sqm of open gardens.

This tapestry of central green space serves to retain a 20-metre view corridor through the site and maximise northern aspects and scenic views from apartments.

Landscape architecture by 360 Degrees seamlessly integrates an internal network of pocket parks, shaded seating, dining pavilions, bocce lawn, kitchen garden, children’s playground and barbecue area via a network of walkways, soft edges and tree canopies. Focused on user emotions, the garden design promotes both social interaction and moments of private enjoyment. Viewed from the apartments above, the geometry makes an equally compelling outlook.

Three huge and historic Moreton Bay fig trees define Pavilions’ urban design at its perimeter, connecting past and present, resident and community, nature and built form. Two trees dominate the active Australia Avenue frontage, providing canopy for a new public green fringed by 1500sqm of retail.

Along Figtree Avenue the streetscape is verdant and activated. The terrace typology at the base of the high-rise buildings is fronted by lush garden courtyards to soften edges and hard fencing, blurring the visual distinction between public and private space.

Organisation

Mirvac Residential

 

Project Brief

As part of its masterplan, Sydney Olympic Park Authority required that a 20-metre view corridor be retained through the heart of the Pavilions site. This established the concept for a major central garden with the four residential buildings positioned around it. Two buildings define the site’s western edge and the other two are perpendicular to it, allowing for a generously scaled landscape that opens out to the north and maximises views to the existing fig trees on the north-east.

The garden plays a critical role in the one of Pavilions’ main design objectives: treating residents to a warm welcome home each day. It functions as the main entrance to apartment buildings and provides valuable amenity to residents in both use and outlook. Other objectives of the garden/landscape design are to build community, provide safe recreation, elevate the quality of public fabric and help to shift the placemaking identity of the Sydney Olympic Park precinct beyond merely a place of recreation/elite achievement to a place that feels like home.

Project Innovation/Need

Landscape design has been critical to delivering a well-resolved, highly legible ground plane which seamlessly connects residential buildings to adjacent Linear Park, Australia Avenue, local walk/cycle trails, and improves access to Olympic Boulevard, public transport, local retail and services, recreational facilities and other walkable attractions.
Via the central gardens, residents enjoy inclusive, safe and equitable access to all buildings plus Pavilions’ common gymnasium, community room and of course all the outdoor amenities.
Two historic Moreton Bay fig trees have been innovatively integrated with built fabric and hardscaping. Decked walkways and seating have been customised to trace the footprint of the trees’ colossal root systems, creating a major design focal point at Pavilions.
To create a place that feels like home, lavish attention has been paid to the welcome-home experience. Refined details such as lighting, materiality and furnishings humanise the high-rise architecture and enrich its warm domestic identity. The sculptural alfresco dining pavilions, for which the entire development is named, sit harmoniously among the greenery, their grey and timber angles complementing the geometry and palette of the stone walkways.
Ground cover is designed to spill over concrete edges of garden beds and soften hard lines. As tree canopies mature and increase their cover, they will continue to reduce the visual impact of building massing from the human scale.
Ambient lighting is a highly considered mix of up-lights and downlights for both wayfinding and mood-setting, and even includes fairy lights wrapped through tree trunks purely to enchant residents during evenings at home.

Design Challenge

One major site constraint at Pavilions was an important and huge Moreton Bay fig tree on the western border of the site. It was a condition of consent that the tree be retained as it has intrinsic historical character as well as a majestic feature of the suburb. Mirvac went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the successful relocation of the enormous tree to the southern end of the site. It took six months of preparation and 10 hours of delicate manoeuvring by two 70-tonne excavators to move the 170-tonne tree just 70 metres.

Pavilions is an outstanding partnership between Mirvac as developer and Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA) as owners of the land. Mirvac sought ways to successfully collaborate and negotiate with SOPA throughout the development for the best residential and community outcomes. For example, for a segment of shared public space on the site’s south end, SOPA envisioned a children’s play area that could integrate with its new walk/cycle path linking Australia Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. It was mutually agreed that SOPA engaged one architect to design both halves of the space for the most cohesive design outcome, with Mirvac contributing costs.

An additional landscape design challenge was how to create substantial, thriving green space within a quadrangle that would experience a great deal of shadow from the surrounding high-rise buildings. This challenge is addressed below in the ‘Sustainability’ section.

Sustainability

The proportion of green/plantings in 360 Degrees’ landscape design is relatively high for this type of multi-residential project. The substantial amount of tree canopy/cover is valuable in assisting with micro-climate control, reducing the urban heat island effect and passive cooling of communal areas and residential balconies and courtyards. As these trees grow, they will provide even more screening/shading and privacy between buildings and between residences and common areas.
The high proportion of softscaping also allows water to filtrate and recirculate, minimising runoff. Subsoil groundwater has been used for irrigation, while rainwater is captured and used for toilet flushing, laundry use (optional) and additional irrigation. When rainwater is in short supply, supply for these uses is topped up by recycled water from Sydney Olympic Park’s WRAMs System.
Building heights and shadow levels necessitated a hardy mix of exotic and native plantings requiring minimal maintenance. Deciduous trees were chosen to allow shading in the summer months and solar access during winter.
Ambient lighting design is gentle to balance safety and aesthetics while minimising intrusion into residences and avoid light pollution in line with Green Star criteria.
To optimise greener movement networks, landscape design enhances access to local services and amenity, public transport and major pedestrian and vehicle thoroughfares.
To promote active living and wellbeing, Pavilions’ gardens connect directly to adjacent Linear Park (which was developed concurrently) and local walk/cycle trails and is in walking distance of the Aquatic Centre and other world-class sports and recreation facilities.