4 November 2024

Held over several Sundays throughout 2024–25, the Sydney Open program opens the doors to select buildings under key themes including Adaptive Reuse, among many more. On Sunday the 3rd of November, there was a line-up of six adaptive reuse projects, including the recently relaunched arts precinct at Rozelle’s White Bay Power Station by Design 5 Architects in collaboration with Place Management NSW, as well as 50 Martin Place – a prominent commercial building now home to Macquarie Group.

White Bay Power Station underwent various remedial works over the last four decades, but since 2021 there has been an extraordinary conservation effort to restore the site for community use. Project Architect Robert Gasparini of Design 5 Architects, Dr Wayne Johnson (archaeologist at Placemaking NSW), Annette Pitman (CEO of MHNSW), and Craig Donarski (Manager of Arts, Culture and Creative Industries of WBPS), gave a talk regarding the power station’s past, sharing fascinating stories of those who worked here as well as insights into the complex process of the building’s remediation.

Principal of Design 5 Architects, Alan Croker, along with Philip Oldfield from the University of New South Wales, and Caroline Pidcock (Pidcock PTY Ltd.) shared insights exploring how practitioners work to dispel the colonial/Country dichotomy and embed both contemporary and ancient cultural practices as part of a conversation session on ’embodied carbon and adaptive reuse’ at 50 Martin Place.

Please see more information here via the Sydney Open Adaptive Reuse program list