A new public square, plaza building and public artwork forming part of the major revitalisation of Sydney’s Circular Quay will be designed by international architect David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates and contemporary Aboriginal artist Daniel Boyd.
The new plaza building is being delivered as part of Lendlease’s Sydney Place development at 180 George Street.
The public plaza will connect to George and Pitt streets along with new laneways underway as part of the major central Sydney redevelopment.
The design, which aims to act as an inclusive public building, with the suspended public artwork to sit 20 metres above the ground, are scheduled for completion in 2022.
Lendlease lodged the development application for the works of the latest addition, as part of billion-dollar plans to transform the Circular Quay precinct and George Street as Sydney’s main boulevard.
Lord mayor Clover Moore said that when completed, the project will be transferred to the city as a new public asset.
Boyd, whose known for his work on the exploration of Australian history and colonisation, says he first met Adjaye in Venice Italy at the 56th Venice Art Biennale in 2015.
Boyd said he later received a surprise call from the international architect inviting him to participate in the George Street project.
“The idea of a public plaza provided a great opportunity for David and I to work together on the concept of relationships,” he said.
“How we as individuals perceive our relationship to a particular place and how collectively those relationships play out in a space.”
Adjaye Associates past designs include the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.
In September, the British based architect was awarded the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, a project that involves three religious spaces, a mosque, a synagogue and a church.
The Adjaye and Boyd team was selected following an expression of interest process.
Originally published by Dinah Lewis Boucher in The Urban Developer here.