About the meaning of place. Adjaye Associates completed George Street Plaza & Community Building
25/03/2023.
[Sydney] Australia
metalocus, ANDRÉS BLANCO
metalocus, ANDRÉS BLANCO
Project description by Adjaye Associates
Rooted in lost history, this is a project about the meaning of place, heritage and identity. An attempt to uncover, layer, and celebrate the Eora origins of this part of coastal Sydney, the project seeks the reconciliation of cultures and defining identity in an ever-changing world. This reconciliation of difference lies at the heart of the proposal and aims to articulate and establish a dialogue around the complex relationship colonizers have with their indigenous communities.
Inspired by simple unitary forms and place-making in Aboriginal culture, we imagine the multifunctional community hub and plaza as a ‘found place’ based on the notion of the shelter, a symbolic respite away from the busy streetscape that is discovered and dissolves through light.
To connect this profound centre with the site's heritage and origins, we have collaborated with Daniel Boyd, a renowned contemporary artist of Aboriginal descent, on the project's key feature – a 27×34 m perforated canopy that shelters and unites the building and the plaza under a poetic layer of light and darkness.
Boyd will curate a cosmic journey of light that filters and refracts through multiple, randomly scattered, circular, mirror-lined canopy openings. The circular pattern translates and is accentuated onto the plaza paving below, seamlessly defining a transition from the bustling surroundings and core artwork experience.
George Street Plaza & Community Building by Adjaye Associates. Photograph by Trevor Mein.
The George Street Plaza building details are intentionally simple. An open plan café, gallery space and garden terrace are wrapped under a reduced utilitarian form. It is a flexible and inviting, free-flow space with activated connections to the plaza and adjacent developments, where encounters with art and community are made easy.
The distinctive pitched roof of the building refers to the primary silhouette of early settlers’ houses – weaving in another layer to the narrative of place. A result is a hybrid form that merges the Aboriginal origins with the legacy of early settlers and the industrial materiality and language of the nearby harbour.
We have envisioned a highly interactive environment that connects holistically to its neighbouring buildings and the public realm. Our proposal in addition to the new multifunctional building includes the George Street public plaza and access to a proposed public cycle parking facility below.
David Adjaye was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1966. The son of a Ghanaian diplomat who has lived in Tanzania, Egypt, Yemen, and Lebanon before moving to Britain at the age of nine, he led a privileged life and was privately educated. He earned his BA at London South Bank University, before graduating with an MA in 1993 from the Royal College of Art. In 1993, the same year of graduation, Adjaye won the RIBA Bronze Medal, a prize offered for RIBA Part 1 projects, normally won by students who have only completed a bachelor's degree.
Previously a unit tutor at the Architectural Association, he was also a lecturer at the Royal College of Art. After very short terms of work with the architectural studios of David Chipperfield (London) and Eduardo Souto de Moura (Porto), Adjaye established a practice with William Russell in 1994 called Adjaye & Russell, based in North London. This office was disbanded in 2000 and Adjaye established his own eponymous studio at this point.
Recent works include the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, and the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management completed in 2010. On April 15, 2009, he was selected in a competition to design the $500 million National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., planned to open in 2015. His design features a crown motif from Yoruba sculpture.
Alongside his international commissions, Adjayes work spans exhibitions, private homes, and artist collaborations. He built homes for the designer Alexander McQueen, artist Jake Chapman, photographer Juergen Teller, actor Ewan McGregor, and artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster. For artist Chris Ofili, he designed a new studio and a beach house in Port of Spain. He worked with Ofili to create an environment for the Upper Room, which was later acquired by Tate Britain and caused a nationwide media debate. He also collaborated with artist Olafur Eliasson to create a light installation, Your black horizon, at the 2005 Venice Biennale. He has also worked on the art project Sankalpa with director Shekhar Kapur. Adjaye coauthored two seasons of BBC's Dreamspaces television series and hosts a BBC radio program. In June 2005, he presented the documentary, Building Africa: Architecture of a Continent. In 2008, he participated in Manifesta 7.
In February 2009, the cancellation or postponement of four projects in Europe and Asia forced the firm to enter into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), a deal to stave off insolvency proceedings which prevents financial collapse by rescheduling debts – estimated at about £1m – to creditors.
Adjaye currently holds a Visiting Professor post at Princeton University School of Architecture. He was the first Louis Kahn visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and was the Kenzo Tange Professor in Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design. In addition, he is a RIBA Chartered Member, an AIA Honorary Fellow, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council. He also serves as member of the Advisory Boards of the Barcelona Institute of Architecture and the London School of Economics Cities programme.
The studio's first solo exhibition: "David Adjaye: Making Public Buildings" was shown at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in January 2006, with Thames and Hudson publishing the catalogue of the same name. This followed their 2005 publication of Adjaye's first book entitled "David Adjaye Houses".
http://www.adjaye.com