Caption: Richard Rogers (pictured) teamed with Lend Lease beat off competition from Norman Foster teamed with Brookfield to win the $6bn proposal.
A public meeting could descend into a slanging match tonight as Richard Rogers and Paul Keating face residents’ outrage over the ill-fated Barangaroo proposal.
A residents’ group, known as Barangaroo Action Group, will challenge the proposal designed by British architect Richard Rogers over its height, along with the New South Wales government over its intrusive involvement in the planning process.
The proposal exceeds height limits by up to 19 metres and includes a 230-metre hotel that would block the sun for residents of the luxury Sydney Wharf development until 10am.
Residents have become increasingly irked by the plan because of its burgeoning size, chairman of the group, Dr Ian Campbell, said.
The development has increased by 500,000sqm since its inception, after the government first enlarged the plan by 30 per cent and the by a further 15 per cent.
“Over the past 10 years the Labor government has taken over control of planning and made themselves immune to planning regulations,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
The 2006 international competition winning scheme was jointly prepared by Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects, Paul Berkemeier Architect and Jane Irwin Landscape Architects. However, the team was offered no further role on the project and had almost no contact with the government since mid-2006.
Philip Thalis told Architecture & Design that his team had been prevented from working on the role further.
Exasperated Australian architects now have to watch British architect Richard Rogers take over the plan that will determine the future of one Sydney’s most important headland developments.
Lend Lease was announced in December as the state’s preferred tenderer to develop the southern part of the 22-hectare site on disused container wharves at East Darling Harbour.
The meeting is being held at the City Recital hall in Angel Place this evening.
