MUDD student projects

exhibits

2002-2003 Broadway & Kent Brewery

3D Perspective (Group 1)

Master Plan (Group 2)

Introduction

The City Gateway project addressed the symbolic issue of the identity and presence of the central city in the metropolitan matrix. Broadway, the western front of Sydney’s urban core is also the eastern end of the Parramatta Road which links the town centres of Sydney and Parramatta, the two oldest British settlements in Australia. Broadway is also the terminus for inter city railway lines. In a historical sense, these factors make Broadway, literally the “Western Gateway” of Sydney. There were other factors, which tended to negate this idea of a gateway in Broadway. Bland building facades and narrow pedestrian ways made it very difficult to create a pause in the pedestrian flow, as one would expect at a gateway.

Broadway today is little more than a traffic conduit, channelling 100,000 traffic movements from the southern and western sectors of suburban Sydney into the central city. Linking City Road, Parramatta Road and Railway Square, the broad expanse of Broadway - widened in the 1930s - is stretched across a dip in the terrain, which opens long vistas to the city in one direction, and to the Gothic Bell Tower of the University of Sydney, in the other. New traffic arrangements associated with the Cross-City tunnel, now offer the possibility of introducing a measure of civility to this lost boulevard.

Initially, the project involved critical examination of the urban morphology of this part of Sydney, and an exploration of building types aimed at integrating new uses with the remnant industrial fabric of the brewery. Following this, the first task was to create a sense of entrance to the City of Sydney without being too literal and obvious. To achieve this, it was necessary to create a “centre of attention” to identify uses that could sustain it. The second task was to utilise the Kent Brewery site in a way that would elevate the social status of the area and encourage a more cohesive and permeable development pattern for the Broadway area as a whole.