Tribe Studio Architects

This competition-winning design recalls the Sydney Harbour Control Tower in a ‘shadow’ of lighting and planting.

The Harbour Control Tower was an iconic figure in Sydney’s skyline from 1974 until its demolition in 2016. It occupied a transitional moment in maritime history, where shipping was industrial in scale, yet technologies like satellite navigation had not yet replaced the need for visual observation. Its construction coincided with significant reshaping of the surrounding landscape, as parts of Millers Point and Darling Harbour were reconfigured to accommodate the demands of global shipping.

The project brief is to interpret the Harbour Control Tower, and to position it in a longer history of shipping, navigation and trade in Sydney Harbour.

The design recalls the monumental scale of the tower by superimposing a mid-winter shadow of the tower on the reinstated/reconstructed Barangaroo topography. This shadow is jammed-filled with endemic flora – grasses and xanthorrhoea and flowering plants. It is also filled with a freckling of pin-point lighting.

Created in collaboration with Cola, Jiwah and Arup on lighting, the project is an exercise in building less, planting more and providing opportunities to quietly observe and connect with Country. The dissonance of the fabricated topography, reinstated landscape, and memory of a monumental built artifact through ephemeral planted and diurnal geometries is a call to contemplation and presence.

From an urban point of view, the extension of the ‘site’ into the projected shadow allows us to enhance the quality of entry into Barangaroo Reserve – we remove palisade fencing, we animate the ‘land bridges’ and we create a sense of night-time safety and surveillance at the edge of the park.