When town landscape architects Hassell began work on The Peninsula residential project in Perth, it literally had a blank canvas: a massive sandpad stretching for hectares. Starting from scratch was one of the challenges of the project which has since won WA’s 2007 CCAA Public Domain award for its plaza design. “Some existing sites have natural features, but this was a blank flat sandpad,” Hassell principal Andy Sharp says. ”We had to create a built environment that had an impact from day one and that would last generations.”
On completion in 2012, The Peninsula in Burswood, developed by Mirvac with in-house architects HPA, will provide a mix of luxury residences for 3,000 people: high rise towers, mid-rise blocks and terrace and courtyard houses. Hassell’s brief was to deliver a robust space that would reinforce the visual link with the city of Perth, just 4 km away. Aside from working with a blank canvas, it was also a brown-filled site, so it was previously contaminated. The remediation work was already done, but Hassell had to undertake soil improvements. Selection of appropriate plants was critical and limiting water consumption a primary motivator.
To help define public realms that form major street avenues, Hassell spent “several million dollars” transplanting mature native or water-wise trees from other localities in Perth that would otherwise have been destroyed. At that time, it was the single largest mature-tree-planting contract in WA. “When creating from scratch on a sandpad, you need to create character and a mature-tree-planting program is the best way to achieve that,” Sharp says. ”Great streets make great places — that was our brief to the client.”
About 50, 10-12m high mature trees have so far been transplanted in a painstaking process. Once a potential tree was located, Sharp would view it to approve it. For the next six months, the tree would undergo root pruning to acclimatise it to its new conditions before it was uprooted and transported around the city on the back of low loaders. Each tree cost about $20,000. Rather than material innovations, Sharp relied on material combinations of concrete, steel, granite and plant materials to create space. Concrete was heavily used because of its colour and finish. “You can hone it, polish it, grind it and you can wash it,” Sharp says.
Sustainability was a key concern. “We recycled the mature trees and we chose plants based on water-wise/ native attributes. We reached a water balance which meant that the water consumption in apartments and in the public realm was minimised so intake and usage were balanced. We captured storm-water runoff as well and minimised the irrigation of grass.” What sets the integrated development apart is the quality of the public realm and the attention to detail, Sharp says. Hassell also designed the private gardens so the interfaces with streets and houses would be consistent.
“We recognise that integrated development is the way of the future because you are delivering a complete product and discerning buyers are more interested in buying something which has future value,” he says.
For the Optus headquarters in Sydney’s Macquarie Park, Anton James Design had to overcome a serious hurdle. It had inherited a 200m long, four-metre high level change between four buildings in the north and two in the south. The challenge was to break down that wall on the northern side to allow access to the courtyard and buildings on the opposite side. “The device we used was to create a ribbon wall which runs along the northern car park,” says director Anton James who worked closely with developer Stockland on the North Ryde project. “It’s a four-metre-high winding, falling wall which breaks down that 200m long straight edge. We chose a digital pattern on that wall to signal Optus’s core activities.” From the top, the wall provides a series of vantage points to look down at the garden. From below, it defines a series of valleys and nooks and crannies. These valleys also act to store some of the water.”
The brief for the Optus headquarters housing 6,500 employees, built by Baulderstone Hornibrook and designed by architect Rice Daubney, was to create a corporate campus, a private, secure space to be enjoyed by staff. It was to be a rich, central environment for the six surrounding buildings with amenities such as cafes and restaurants opening on to the courtyard. The perimeter landscape encompassed storm-water retention, a basketball court, public footpath, visitor parking and main-street frontage. The environmental objective was to manage the storm-water on site while the recreation amenity aimed to create intimate and larger spaces, including an amphitheatre, to be occupied by bigger groups.
For the project, Anton James Design continued its exploration of concrete, a material James describes as robust, simple, highly plastic and versatile. Glass mosaic tiles were featured in the courtyards on the podiums while large areas of Chinese granite were used on pavements. Lightweight soil mixes, spotted gums and lily pily trees were also prominent, the latter selected on performance and their ability to provide dense, even foliage. “We tended to use plants that once established will require low-water use,” he says. “There is also a massive water tank with irrigation all run by captured storm-water.”
In accordance with council requirements to manage storm-water, the development provided for all stormwater to be detained up to a one in 100-year event. This was achieved through on-site roof detention, detention basins and detention swales. The quality of storm-water will be managed through macrophites in the ponds, filtration and gross pollutant traps. When asked about key lessons from the project, James did not hesitate.
“One of the technical challenges was the ribbon wall with its pattern because it was made in situ as opposed to being made in the factory and brought to the site in pieces. By being done on site, we learnt some lessons about the in situ process and its many possibilities. The pond edges were pre-cast and that showed what fine work pre-cast can achieve. We plan to use that in the future.”
