PIER PAVILION
04 Nov 2025
Pier Pavilion, one of Sydney's newest architectural landmarks, provides Barangaroo with the perfect spot to stop and enjoy the view of Sydney Harbour. With a design from Besley & Spresser that took its cues from the Harbour's coastline, the public structure works harmoniously with its surrounds.
Text description provided by the architects. Won in a national competition in 2020, the Pier Pavilion is a new permanent civic pavilion on Sydney Harbour. The building functions as a host for special events and as a place of public repose to take in harbour views and enjoy the public realm. The site forms part of a wider harbourside regeneration effort focusing on the western edge of Sydney's city centre in Barangaroo. The Pier Pavilion references land, sea and sky through its various formal and material components.
The plan responds to the geometry of coves and peninsulas, which characterise Sydney Harbour. A complex play of columns supports a landscape roof and variously screens and modulates internal and external spaces. A circle of light from a large roof oculus roams across the ground and double colonnade, balancing internal and external daylighting. Inside the Pavilion is a second, freestanding building housing a servery with bar, store, and technical area that supports events.
The envelope of the Pier Pavilion is made of "oyster terrazzo", a material specially formulated for the project by Besley & Spresser, combining whole Sydney Rock Oyster shells with a variety of recycled aggregates. A year in mix experimentation and testing, the resultant material, when honed, expresses the distinctive and variegated forms of the shell across its face. The oyster terrazzo material ties the building to its site, where these oysters have flourished for millennia, and connects to long traditions in architecture of materiality and ornament. Nearly half a million oyster shells were recycled and used in the construction, which would otherwise have been committed to landfill.
The structure allows a long free span, with roof trusses resolving around the oculus, supported only at the perimeter by 86 moment-resisting columns. The oyster terrazzo is hung in the manner of stone from the ceiling, columns, walls, and fascia. A folding laminated timber deck supports the landscape roof, which consists of endemic planting, sandstone, and hollow logs typical of the surrounding headlands. Species were sought to attract native insects and birds to create microhabitats. Columns house the building's service routes, including drainage, electricity, and communications, in lieu of exposed downpipes and risers.
PIER PAVILION
LOCATION Baranagaroo, Sydney
ARCHITECT Besley & Spresser
PHOTOGRAPHY Rory Gardiner
