BALLAST POINT PARK

Ballast Point Park is a new public harbourside space recently completed in Sydney. Since 1933 the site was used for fuel storage. It was returned to public use in 2002, with the development of the in 2009. The park was designed by landscape architects McGregor Coxall and engineered by Landscape Solutions. Permathene Pty Ltd was the successful bidder for the supply of the welded gabion panels.

A total of 9000 square meters gabion panels were supplied to this project, including 204 square meters of non standard curved panels. These were custom made into 0.6m x 4.2m and 0.3m x 4.2m panels to build up retaining walls up to nine meters in height.

According to the Corrosivity Zones in Australia, Balmain is rated as C3 classification, which is medium. A higher corrosion resistance to increase the final life span of the gabions was used including 600gsm coating of Zinc and Aluminium 3.15mm wire mesh was specified by the engineers for the project. Numerous corrosion tests (including ASTM B117), together with extended coastal field trials, shows the use of aluminium/ zinc will last approximately two to three times longer than plain galvanized (zinc only). Permathene 600gsm Zinc-Alu coated welded mesh provides an estimated 21-40 years to full depletion of coating.

The park has been designed to consolidate the layers of history by putting re-use of materials sourced on site, such as recycled concrete, sandstone boulders, and even shells as part of the structure. To accommodate this design, Permathene supplied panels with mesh sizes of 50mm x 100mm rather than standard 75mm x 75mm, which holds smaller bricks and created an aesthetically pleasing structure.

The highly successful Ballast Point Park is considered to be one of Sydney’s best new public spaces - and gabions, as the hot trend in landscape architecture, has been widely recognised and adopted by landscapers, architects and designers.