Hill Thalis A + UP

The architect & project team & their building.
At the opening of the new Perry Park amenities building by architects - Matt Chan with studios.
Lean, beautifully detailed pavilion part of ambitious new sports hub by to serve growing Green Sq community. Candalepas sports hall lines opposite side of the field.
Bravo & City team too

The sinuous curves of our boardwalk at Parramatta Quay, super popular, robust & connected, encouraging all forms of active transport & promenading.

With thanks to &

Photo

Master architect , 88 years young & in full flight to mark the publication of a fantastic new book of images of his unbuilt projects, assembled by .
Great discussion led by , & strong intro by State Librarian

Bonus display of his drawings from the Library archive.

Walking colonnade, Gadigal Avenue in the emerging Lachlan Precinct, just north of Victoria Park in .
Architects
All too rare to see such character & strongly modelled structure in

On the design of roof gardens; our apartments at Little Bay, designed with landscape architects, have expansive communal roof terraces, stepped with the slope of the site, enjoying the panorama of the coastal landscape.

Roof top communal spaces need a special combination of shelter, shade, a range of planting, some informal play, communal facilities & the elements, generous in dimensions, all accessible & integrated with the architecture

The pair of buildings define entry courtyard

3Ds by Turf
Thanks .e.rowe &

Wandering amongst the wonders of the heritage precinct in North Parramatta, including the former Female Factory.
Beautiful ensemble of buildings, built over a century, various restoration works underway or complete.

The new Parramatta Light Rail runs quietly through the precinct - grassed tracks, stop up on Fleet St, bridge over to Westmead, no overhead wires through the sensitive heritage areas, no fences..
Good to see lessons learnt from Anzac Pde line

Fabulous full-on day of Yr3 Graduation Studio student interim presentations
Love the energy of the big submission days, & to see & compare the array of student models, same public building project, all at same scale.

Thanks students & tutors 👏👏👏
.architecture et al

Our Verve towers in Newcastle ( designed with ), featured by .architect.nsw as an exemplar of best practice in urban housing.
Shows organisation of street facade, new canal-side public promenade, generous podium gardens, lower wings & pair of slender towers.

This project won major architecture awards & is a demonstration of .
High % of winter sun & cross ventilation throughout, all lobbies open to outlook, fine street wall, careful site planning & varied scales between lower wings & small footprint towers, wide variety of housing choices

With thanks to

Just on other side of Harbour Bridge from Sirius are many of the first public housing buildings in Aust, most built between 1900-17.
All also sold off by Berejiklian/Perrotet privatisation.
Over 300 homes sold off here, incl this 1911 design by by NSW Govt Arch in Lower Fort St.

Appears as terraces, but actually 6 apartments gathered around open stair in the slot.
All apartments gain light & air on 3 sides, superior brick & iron design for the times.
Very light touch to street (spot the red & pink restored windows) by architects

Photos 1-4 as updated
Photos 5-8 when was public housing (obviously neglected)
Photos 9-10 original plans

Spotto Sirius.
Skilful adaptation & additions by certainly, but such a loss that the increased volumes didn’t yield more needed public housing … rather than yet more real estate for the rich ..
Such a Sydney story

Ps the fine artwork (last picture) - suitcases of the displaced residents? - does it really need tactiles all around?

A chorus of primary colours on the construction site of our public commuter Carpark opposite Campbelltown Station.
What looks like a vast slab actually punctuated by a landscape courtyard, traversed by the ramps.
Reds yellows & blues of the timber formwork, rep caps, crane, post-tensioning trays & down pipes

Thanks to &

At UNSW, at the tram’s northern gateway to the campus the hulking concrete ziggurat of the Clancy Auditorium, skillfully overlaid with lightweight metal additions by
Inside the precision of the concrete structure opened up to shimmering light.

Enigmatic door in wall, what lies within?
Wall part bedrock extended with matching rough cast render. Fine classical architrave & balustrade above.
Just off Argyle St in The Rocks, as Cambridge St rises
Little mysteries of

So pleased to win a NSW Award in Multiple Housing category for Horizon Apartments in Newcastle - another great collaboration with
Set along the harbourside promenade, an ensemble of 3 buildings defining courtyard spaces.
A model of , urbanity with liveability.

With thanks to our team
Built by
Photos

The reconstruction of the Parramatta Park’s café & restaurant, which had been destroyed by fire.
Nestled into the landscape, skillful work with a light touch by & team.

The sublime watergate of Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital (now Rivendell youth centre), designed by controversial architect Sir John Sulman in 1891.
Superb array of axially arranged buildings, inset with courtyards, set in extensive gardens, all in red brick & sandstone.

So many fine architectural elements & details - the arches to the courtyards, the bay windows, roofs & tower - which even boasts perhaps the best caryatids in Australia!

On the ; our low scale, mid-density St Peters Green Seniors Living project in West Chatswood.
Every apartment faces north & cross ventilated, generous shared verandas & open stairs, site plan arranged about 5 landscaped courtyards with more than 50%of site area deep soil.

Dignity with amenity.
Model for

Thanks to

Here’s a book to buy!
New monograph on a selection of Glenn Murcutt’s Unbuilt Works, masterfully, faithfully rendered in exquisite montages, all reviewed by Glenn himself, + original drawings.
Extraordinary effort by architect of & team.
Launching end July - order now!

The grand but rather forlorn Commemorative Pavilion, built in old Sydney Showgrounds in 1938 to mark 150 years since English settlement.
One of 2 great Exhibition Halls built there at time of Sydney Empire Games.
Under construction & in the heyday of the Easter Show
Were proudly , for now alienated .

Fabulous day teaching , reviewing 30+ Yr3 Library precedent models.
Lots of greatest hits, starting with Michelangelo in Florence (play Spotto), through the centuries to many recent exemplars.

Quite a few fine recent Sydney libraries too.

All made at same scale - learning by doing, comparing, collectively In class.

Thanks to all the students 👏👏👏

Certainly Vivid!
So many out & about amongst the spectacular places in

We’ve always been fascinated by the possibilities of the !

30 years ago with designed this pair of compact 125m2, tall jarrah-clad houses, each supported on 12 slender steel columns.

Enabled by the poor Dual Occupancy Code, which never envisaged such a design on bush site. Whereas this code (SEPP25) allowed houses in backyards, destroying the landscape, here we kept all the angophoras & ferns.

Photos by

Heroic Modernism in Parramatta;
Architects John Andrews International’s Octagon office building runs block to block between George & Charles St, with a central palm-planted courtyard & Andrew’s signature elements; primary geometries cast in concrete, external shading (not the original) trussed toplight, circular stairs with glass blocks, circulation as generator.

Opened as recently as 1990, it’s at risk of demolition for towers

In Parramatta, the impressive emerging volumes of the Powerhouse Museum.
Shows up the difference between size & scale - lots of taller structures of repetitively stacked floors, whereas here soaring volumes of public rooms taking shape.

Large riverfront square & civic link look promising too, connecting right back to the metro (under construction), light rail (now testing & Stage 2 confirmed) to the station.

More confident new , such public projects more important for real city making & urban life than yet another black glass tower…

The most recent issue of covers a career - an atypical pathway less travelled by other architects.

City making, urban projects, public space & architecture, urban housing of all types & sizes, heritage & creative adaptation, Uni teaching, research & publication, advocacy & engagement, public lectures & media, local democracy ..
. all mixed together to endeavour to enrich architectural & urban culture & to communicate to a broader public the value of design thinking in architecture, envy& city making ..

1st time our work featured on a magazine cover.. easy to spot, & please take a look..

&society

Architects’ tiny house additions clustered at the corners of Adelaide St & Little Riley St in Surry Hills.
Many lots thereabouts under 80m2, but with design skill can creatively adapt these tiny, once slummy into C21st spatial wonders

Landscape architect & their park; Libby Gallagher at Sweetacres Park, Nth Rosebery remade as prototypical urban park - what a great model!
60x100m, flat, bounded by streets with existing street trees, large lawn, exuberant playground, lots of seating & tables, edged by 6 storey apartments with shop frontages.
We need hundreds of such fine urban parks across Sydney as the driver of .
We have the parks reserved, they need the attention of excellent landscape architects, & planning to target the edges for higher density housing that so benefits from its park frontage

Bravo yet again &

Hill Thalis & Landcom have been working alongside a brilliant group of Sydney designers on . Led by the irrepressible & dynamic environmental engineer from , a New Normal Sydney gathers projects that imagine a better future for our planet and ourselves.

Our prototype project Ag-ora combines Waste-to-Energy with public space to transform the civic life.

Make sure you visit the exhibition at from Now! 24 May – 15 June at the Harwood Building Courtyard & Carpark to see so many great, immediately do-able projects to transform Sydney’s environmental performance!

Project team &

Visiting the acres of wonders of Bianco’s precast concrete plant in Adelaide - like a trip into a kaleidoscope of Jeffrey Smart’s urban scenes, assorted debris & improbable props!
Quality plus!

Sneak peak at new St Joseph’s Primary School in Rosebery nearing completion, by leading architects Beside existing church, designed around a large central playground, with a ring of playful verandahs & distinctive blue entries.
Recycled brick facades to the bounding streets, generous hall within