BALFOUR POCKET PARK

by Design Landscapes Australia Pty Ltd

As part of the early works package associated with the new One Central Park development, Design Landscapes Pty Ltd was engaged by Sydney City Council to undertake a part road closure of Balfour Street, allowing the development of a small pocket park and pedestrian link into Chippendale Green. The new park was designed using materials that would both reflect the past history of the site (Carlton United Brewery) and acknowledge the future development’s contemporary styling and use.

Design Landscapes Pty Ltd took possession of the site following the initial demolition of the existing roadway and installation of infrastructure services, with a scope of works that included:

  • Bulk excavation
  • Detailed grading and sub-grade preparation
  • Storm water and subsoil drainage
  • Electrical works for street lights and feature LED lighting
  • 100 mm thick reinforced concrete sub-base to hardscape areas
  • Installation of trachyte kerbs
  • Brick paving and brick paved swale
  • Feature art paving inclusive of precast concrete, glass, brick, trachyte, sandstone and bluestone.
  • Precast concrete bridge/walkway and bench seating
  • Washed aggregate concrete paving
  • Galvanised steel planters
  • Design and fabrication of stainless steel feature lighting
  • Softscapes

The paving units are pressed bricks laid on edge over a wet mortar bed, on a reinforced concrete slab, and with 5 mm mortar joints. The bricks are a mix of three different colours at an unequal ratio of 25%, 35% and 40%, hand blended during the laying process. The darkest of the bricks, as a result of a longer firing process and greater degree of shrinkage, had noticeably different dimensions requiring consistent cheating of the joints and trimming of pavers to prevent creep in the pattern and discrepancies in joint width. With a very restricted cross fall to the brick swale (1:133), the paving levels had virtually zero tolerance.

The light reeds concept design was refined in house for buildability and vandal resistance. To combat the potential to bend rigid reeds poles we designed a dual base plate and spring assembly so that the poles would move when pressure was applied.

The art/paving feature was a recognition of the original development, designed to incorporate many of the classic materials used in the original CUB buildings including a brown glass component to reflect the beer bottles produced at the factory. The tiles were manufactured in house utilising a non-porous epoxy and grinding the glass aggregate surface post manufacture to achieve a safe surface finish.

The project has been recognised with a number of awards including the 2010 Horbury Hunt – Think Brick Award and the 2012 LNA Excellence in Landscape Construction Award for Commercial/Civil projects.



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