What If?
Town Hall Plaza

Public, Speculative | Gadi | Sydney

An ambitious speculative alternative for a new civic square in the heart of the city

What if?

Our ‘What if’ proposal imagines a new civic square that occupies the space beneath, through, up, down and in-between the existing buildings.

The design imagines a connected, habitable community adventure playground, one that brings light, air and greenery to the ground plane while also retaining some of the spaces above it.

Instead of demolition, the buildings are retained and parts of them are carefully cut away, so that the new square is experienced in three-dimensions. You can be on upper floors and the roof, and still be in the square; you could be below ground level and still be in the square. The public plaza exists in three dimensions and makes reference to the long-standing practice of occupying the many levels of the Town Hall steps opposite it.

We need to talk about Demolition

The City of Sydney is planning to gift us all a fantastic new public plaza opposite the Town Hall; a project that has been many decades in the making.

To achieve this long-held dream, seven buildings need to be demolished and their basements filled in, to create a new ground-level space for people to gather formally and informally.

This proposed plaza will become a key gathering space for carols, protests, celebrations, out-of­ office meetings and weekday lunches.

But what if we could achieve all of those outcomes without demolishing any of the existing buildings?

What if there was another way? A way to retain and reuse all seven buildings - and their considerable embodied carbon - that could provide a richly textured and layered series of community spaces?

Every building that we choose to retain is both an environmental and cultural win, a tangible expression of care for the city’s memories and stories embedded in place.

We realise this is not a likely outcome for Town Hall Plaza, but we assert that it’s time for a more imaginative and thoughtful approach to the current business-as-usual model which favours wholesale demolition of buildings.

This way of thinking throws up new and different questions for us to consider, such as:

  • How many existing buildings – which are solidly built, but unfashionable – will be knocked down, when a different approach could give them another 100 years of life?

  • Which cities are struggling to provide communal open space while failing to capitalise on the conversion or uplift opportunities offered by rooftops, undercrofts, balconies and basements?

  • What opportunities can we unlock when we start by asking: ‘How can we make better use of the buildings and spaces we already have’?

A new vision for a changing future

 If the Town Hall Plaza project goes ahead as planned, it will realise a visionary and radical view of the city that was first mooted in the 1980’s, and was later endorsed by the Gehl Architects report in 2007.

This is an idea whose time has finally come, and we celebrate that possibility. 

However, our thinking about buildings –and their embodied carbon – has necessarily evolved since the Town Hall Plaza project was first proposed.

Now, in an age of carbon-accounting, the next visionary idea for our built environment should focus on retention, on adaptive re-use, and on radical upgrades.

We call upon the City and building owners of all stripes – and in all parts of the country – to think again about the inherent value of their existing built structures.

Click here to read more in The Sydney Morning Herald

Project Team
Ashley Dunn, Lee Hillam, Callum Andrews, Blake Corry, Annie McKinnon