By Toby Johnstone,
It has taken almost 20 years but 10 major buildings in the Green Square Town Centre are expected to be under construction by the end of the year.
Crown Group has released the first images of its planned 20-storey tower designed by Koichi Takada Architects, which it will seek approval for in May. The 10 buildings, ranging from three to 28 stories, will flank the planned public plaza and sunken library.
Crown Group chief executive Iwan Sunito said the ”unique curved form” of Crown’s tower would make it a ”landmark building within the new Green Square Town Centre”.
An artist’s impression of Crown Group’s proposed 20-storey tower designed by Koichi Takada Architects at Green Square. Photo: Crown Group
Work on the tower, which will comprise 416 apartments and 5000 square metres of retail and restaurant space, will begin early next year but most of the other proposed buildings are expected to break ground by Christmas.
First raised as a new urban renewal area in 1995, the precinct – which City of Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore said was more difficult to get off the ground than Barangaroo – is expected to be completed by 2030.
”It is all beginning to happen and we are working very hard to make sure we have very beautiful facilities for what will be a very dense new area of Sydney,” Cr Moore said.
When complete the town centre will provide 3700 new apartments and 8500 new jobs. But the broader Green Square precinct will be home to 40,000 residents. Over the next 10 years the City of Sydney will fork out $440 million on the project to build roads, drainage and community facilities, including the library and public plaza as well as an aquatic centre and sports park.
But the design of towers that will run alongside the plaza are in the hands of the developers, including Crown Group, the Green Square Consortium (Mirvac, Leighton and Urban Growth), Bridgehill Projects and Lateral Corporation.
While full of praise for the public spaces, Danish architect and urban planner Jan Gehl has flagged concerns about the overall density of the site.
”It is quite high and it is quite dense and it will be somewhat overshadowed in many places, so it is extremely important that the spaces between the buildings become very acceptable, very attractive,” he said.
The author of Public Spaces – Public Life, who has long been a proponent of removing cars from George Street, has been enlisted by the City of Sydney as an adviser for Green Square.
”I am, of course, quite worried about all this density and all these narrow streets but if you have to do it like this then you have to do extra good public spaces,” he said.
”The square certainly should be a wonderful place to spend time, to walk through, to sit and have coffee.”
The competition to design the library and plaza was won by Stewart Hollenstein in association with Colin Stewart Architects, and a competition has begun to design the aquatic centre and sports park.
With key developers now committed to the town centre and two affordable housing blocks already approved, Cr Moore said the next challenge would be convincing the state government to extend the light rail to Green Square.
”[Green Square] is four kilometres from the city, so it is just too far to walk … We will need to be able to move people on the surface and currently already the buses are not coping.
”We are hoping that the George Street route that goes out to Moore Park will be the beginning of the network and we hope the next part of the network will be to Green Square.”
