The Sydney Forum for Architecture and Urban Design Inc is a not-for-profit association incorporated in the state of New South Wales, dedicated to exchanging ideas on placemaking - how to make cities better, more liveable places.
Although its prime focus is on Sydney, it also examines urban issues in other cities around the world. For more information, click here THE IMPACT OF URBANISATION AND MASS TOURISM ON AUSTRALIA'S FRAGILE LANDSCAPES
Read Helen Armstrong's analysis of conflicting imperatives here: 
AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON SYDNEY'S TROUBLED LIGHT RAIL PROJECT
Paul McGillick argues that grievance is threatening to stifle what should be a celebration of urban transformation. Read article 
HOBART: BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
As the Tasmanian economy finally gets out of first gear, there are big changes happening in the Hobart CBD. Read Paul McGillick's article here: 
FROM SUBMARINES TO BARBECUES
posted 24/09/18 
SFAUDi members at HMAS Platypus on Saturday, 01/09/18, during a tour of the new waterside walk connecting North Sydney Ferry Wharf with Kesterton Park. The former submarine base is being gradually opened up for public use and enjoyment, and also includes a barbecue and picnic area, and a submarine themed children’s playground. Work is currently underway on creating new public areas and conserving some of the original buildings. A waterside café is also planned for the future. Simeon King, of Aspect Studios (which has been involved in the project) was the group’s guide (top image, pictured fourth from the left).
GREEN SQUARE WALK
The Infinity development under construction in July 2018 at Green Square, Sydney. Designed by Koichi Takada Architects, it will be one of the defining buildings of the new Green Square Town Centre, with an underground pedestrian connection to Green Square Station. Part of the glass entrance to the new library is on the right.
Posted 25/07/18
It’s Australia’s largest urban renewal project - the eight billion dollar Green Square scheme in Sydney - so it was a fitting location for our SFAUDI urban walk on Saturday July 14th 2018. Our members’ response to the transformation of this former industrial area into an attractive and sustainable urban environment was generally positive, in contrast to their concerns about the quality of the massive residential developments that have been built in Rhodes. The walk began at the new Joynton Avenue Creative Centre, formerly the Esme Cahill nurses quarters, which will provide artists’ studios, workshops and gallery spaces, and will also be available for community hire. The building’s transformation, which includes a dramatic canopy designed by Peter Stutchbury, extending from the arched windows of the original 1936 era facade, has drawn widespread praise, and won the Australian Institute of Architecture NSW Architecture Medallion. The walk continued to the unfinished Infinity building at Green Square Station, which will provide an innovative corner-piece to the new Green Square Town Centre - which is now finally underway after two decades of planning. Infinity has been designed by Koichi Takada Architects. The fluid form of the building, essentially two interconnected loops, is - according to Koichi Takada - designed to create a “seamless connection between the public and the private ......a haven for its residents but also an embracing and sculptural portal for the easy everyday flow into and out of its private, public, recreational and retail zones and its open, light-flooded heart”. Other developments nearing completion are the new library - designed by Stewart Hollenstein, and Mirvac’s 28 storey Ovo development, which in addition to being the tallest building in the new town centre, (a useful landmark for disorientated newcomers) will also include some affordable accommodation. The next destination on the walk was the East Village complex, whose shopping centre, with its distinctive “timber mushroom” columns, was also designed by Koichi Takada. The large numbers of people who already inhabit Green Square’s new apartments have already triggered the establishment of new cafés and restaurants, including Allpress Espresso on Epsom Road - where the SFAUDI grouped stopped for coffee, followed by lunch at Café Vité on Elizabeth Street, which has only be operating for twelve months. With 55,000 residents expected to occupy Green Square over the next twelve years, expect many more cafés, bars and restaurants to open their doors in the months and years ahead! 
SFAUDi members in front of the new canopy projecting from the Joynton Avenue Creative Centre. The transformation of the 1930s era nurses quarters was carried out by architect Peter Stutchbury
Contrasting old and new in Green Square
A FAST TRACK REVIVAL FOR NEWCASTLE'S CBD
posted 03/05/18 After numerous attempts over the years to revive Newcastle’s CBD, New South Wales’ second largest city is finally reaching a tipping point to become an attractive place to live and work. Already, population pressures, traffic congestion and lack of housing affordability have prompted large numbers of Sydneysiders to head north, to enjoy a more affordable and relaxed lifestyle - the way Sydney used to be. On Saturday, April 28th 2018, SFAUDI members - including David Wilson of Transport for NSW - made the trip themselves to see some of the projects that are transforming the heart of the city. Chief among these is the Newcastle Light Rail Line, currently under construction, which will run 2.7 kilometres from the new Newcastle Interchange at Wickham to Pacific Park in Newcastle East, replacing the heavy rail line which created both a physical and psychological barrier between the waterfront and the city centre. The light rail project is part of a $500 million program to revitalise the centre of the city and provide a catalyst for further urban renewal, as well as forming the basis for an extended light rail system in the future. 
SFAUDI members on Newcastle’s light rail construction site, with David Wilson of Transport for New South Wales, (fourth from the left.) In the background is the recently completed NeW Space - the University of Newcastle’s $95 million education precinct and city campus.
A view of the Newcastle light rail line currently under construction, looking east along the light rail corridor in Hunter Street.
The disused platforms of the old Newcastle Station, following removal of the heavy rail track. Various ideas have been suggested for the station’s future, including conversion into a space for cafés, eateries and an arts precinct.
The decommissioned Newcastle Signal Box (left) with barriers fencing off the new light rail construction site
SFAUDi TRIBUTE TO JØRN UTZON
SFAUDi members gathering at the Observatory Hill bandstand in Sydney to mark the centenary of the birth of Jørn Utzon, the Danish architect of the Sydney Opera House, who was born in Copenhagen on April 9th, 1918. (Posted 10.04.18)
THE RELEVANCE OF JOHN RUSKIN TODAY
Dr Anuradha Chatterjee gave a well-attended talk to SFAUDi members on April 12th 2018 on the impact John Ruskin has had on architecture throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Dr Chatterjee is an architectural historian and theorist based in Sydney, and her talk followed the publication of her book “John Ruskin and the Fabric of Architecture” published by Routledge. UPDATE: On 25/05/18 Dr Anuradha Chatterjee announced that she had been elected a Companion to the Guild of St George (set up by Ruskin in 1871, 1878) and was now one of two Australians who are Companions. She was compelled by the premise that the Guild's "purpose has never been to pursue antiquarian projects" and that it "aims to work in the spirit of Ruskin's Company, promoting Ruskin's values in the modern world." She said it will be interesting to see how she brings her postmodern/ post structuralist/ feminist thinking to bear further upon unravelling the potentialities of Ruskin's writings. SYDNEY MODERN EXPLAINED
Nicholas Wolff, Project Director of the planned expansion of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, explaining to SFAUDI members on March 28th 2018 how the new gallery buildings will step down from the land bridge over the Eastern Distributor to a currently underutilised lower level currently occupied by two disused oil tanks constructed during the Second World War.
One of the oil tanks will be retained and incorporated in the new Sydney Modern Project, which has been designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryun Nishizawa of Tokyo-based SANAA, who also designed the New Museum in New York and the Rolex Learning Centre in Lausanne.
The Sydney Modern Project is intended to transform the Art Gallery of NSW into one of the world’s great art museums, enable it to host more major international art exhibitions, and create “a vibrant new cultural hub”.
OUTRAGE OVER PLANNED KINGS X DEMOLITION PLAN
posted 26/02/18 Community anger over plans to demolish an entire city block in Sydney’s Kings Cross is growing, If the development goes ahead, all the buildings on the block, from the Empire Hotel on the corner of Roslyn Street and Darlinghurst Road, to the Fountain Café facing Fitzroy Gardens, will be razed. Only the curving facade of the Empire Hotel (formerly “Les Girls”) and parts of the late Victorian arcaded facade of the Bourbon building - which would be incorporated in the new development of luxury apartments, shops, cafés and restaurants, would be retained. However, the developers, Piccadilly Property Trust, maintain the development would revitalise a “ decaying area........(and) will help create much more of a village atmosphere with a boutique lifestyle.” THE DYNAMICS OF DORMANCY Reviving and re-energising the Outer West town centres of the Sydney Basin - by Jonathan Drane posted 03.02.18 
A solution to dormancy? Greater Sydney will be a global metropolis of three productive, liveable and sustainable cities: Western Parkland City, Central River City and Easter Harbour City.
A BELIEVABLE, LIVEABLE SYDNEY versus SUSTAINABLE MELBOURNE. by Jon Johannsen posted 16/11/17 From co-working to communal living, new strategies are emerging to tackle sky high urban property prices and rents, traffic congestion and urban stress. With "liveability" now attracting so much media attention, and with so much analysis of the ‘most liveable city criteria’, it's timely to look at what constitutes a good urban and suburban quality of life. 
Steam Junkies Café in The Commons, Brunswick, Melbourne
The Commons, Brunswick, Melbourne
SYDNEY IS CHANGING - BUT IS THIS THE FUTURE WE WANT? 
Posted 13.11.17
To get an idea of how large areas of Sydney may look in 10 to 15 years time - take a train to Rhodes (or drive if you don’t mind being stuck in endless jams) and walk along the waterfront. That’s what a group of SFAUDi members did on October 28th 2017, and it was quite an eye opener. Reactions to the endless modern apartment blocks stretching along the waterfront, ranged from “a shocker” and “a missed opportunity” to “only good in parts”. But this is the future we’re facing as the NSW Government presses ahead with its policy of providing hundreds of thousands of new homes through densification and “priority precincts” with high rise towers clustered around railway stations and along transport routes. Already public unease at the rate at which suburbs are being transformed is showing signs of turning into outright opposition, especially where this transformation is not being matched by the construction of additional infrastructure to cater to the growing population. Yet with Sydney’s population continuing to increase, and the lack of affordable housing an increasingly politicised issue, the alternative to urban consolidation is new dormitory suburbs built on distant greenfield sites on the city’s periphery, which is hardly an ideal solution. 
At least in Wentworth Point and the western section of Rhodes, no existing community has been disrupted - the area was largely industrial until about 15 years ago - since when an entirely new urban environment has been created on land that was once the home of paint and chemical works, the Ralph Symonds plywood factory and other industrial facilities.
And whatever one’s view of the aesthetics of an overwhelmingly modernist - some would even say sterile - built environment, and the absence of any new terrace housing - one of the most successful forms of medium density housing ever devised - considerable thought has gone into creating a sense of place, with the new low rise Rhodes Community Centre - The Connection - acting as a community hub, and the new car-free Bennelong Bridge linking Rhodes to the Wentworth Point peninsula - where the design quality of the new buildings currently under construction - compared with what’s been built in some other parts of Sydney - promises to be high. It’s a shame, though, that the only pre-existing structure of any “heritage” value - the former plywood factory - a building of real architectural distinction which would have made an excellent adaptable space for events - is to be demolished. SFAUDi member Bob Perry, of Scott Carver architects, designed the Bennelong Bridge, and has also been involved in the design of Marina Square, one of the main developments on Wentworth Point. After showing the group of SFAUDi members round the area, Bob Perry told us about the critical importance of the new pedestrian, cyclist and bus-only bridge to the future success of the development: Benefits of SFAUDi membership: For a one-off lifetime membership fee of $100: ENJOY guided architectural tours of Sydney and its environs RECEIVE generous discounts on ticket prices of regular SFAUDi talks and events ENGAGE with Sydney's leading urban design & architectural thinkers & writers. CONTRIBUTE to discussions around Sydney's urban design & architectural future. SHARE your expertise with some of the world's best architects, urban designers & writers. PUBLISH your ideas with the help of our professional editorial team. CLAIM Continuing Professional Development points for your SFAUDi activities. SFAUDi members who are registered architects in NSW are able to claim up to 5 hours CPD per registration year. Membership is cross-disciplinary and is open to residents of Sydney, visitors, and anyone with an interest in Sydney Contact us on: info@sydneyforum.org.au 
SFAUDi membership badge: 32 mm diameter
NEW URBANISM'S CO-FOUNDER SLAMS NSW BUILDING CODES 26/07/17 As co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism in 1993, Stefanos Polyzoides is sometimes referred to as the "Godfather" of the New Urbanism movement - a title with which he's not entirely comfortable, given its Mafia connotations. But he is doubtless one of the most influential architects practising today - and New Urbanism, although controversial and rejected by some architects, planners and developers, is still making a significant contribution to the built environment. The CNU's philosophy is in sharp contrast to that of an earlier Congress - le Congrès Internationaux de l'Architecture Moderne, or CIAM, founded in Switzerland in 1928 under the leadership of le Corbusier, and intended to promote the ideas of the Modern Movement, such as those embodied in le Corbusier's unrealised plan for "la Ville Radieuse", and which has been especially influential in Australia since the 1960s. In Sydney to address a seminar at the University of Sydney, Stefanos Polyzoides took a break from the drinks party in his honour to talk to SFAUDI's Hamish Robertson. With the benefit of hindsight, has New Urbanism fulfilled its early promise, or has it only been partially realised as an architectural and design movement? 'THE PLACE ECONOMY' How everyone benefits from "place visioning" - creating great places where people can enjoy working and living. Andrew Hoyne, of Australian branding and place visioning company Hoyne, gave a stimulating presentation to a SFAUDi gathering at his office in Sydney last Thursday, (13.07.17), to coincide with the publication of his latest book The Place Economy. (See Paul McGillick's review). The Place Economy argues how achieving just the minimum requirements in a development is actually counterproductive - extra effort in getting the best possible outcomes, in terms of cultural and human connections, first rate architecture, best practice planning, materials, amenities and green space, not only results in greater profits, but also leads to better emotional and physical health, as well as sustainability. Above: "The Place Economy" promotional video; below: edited extracts from Andrew Hoyne's presentation at a SFAUDi gathering on July 13th 2017
"The Place Economy" is available directly from Hoyne Design, www.theplaceeconomy.com.au. Each copy costs $200, all of which goes to charity.
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