TRANSFORMING URBAN PLACES THROUGH ARTWORK INTERVENTION

Published: June 18, 2024Categories: Movement & Transport, Public SpacesTags:

Abstract

This article highlights the contribution of Studio Chris Fox to the quality of the built environment through three very different spatial intervention projects in Sydney: The Interloop (2017) at Wynyard Station, the Interchange Pavilion (2020) at South Everleigh and the Rozelle Interchange at Rozelle Bay (2023).

About the Author

Artist and academic Chris Fox founded Studio Chris Fox which aims to transform the public domain through art intervention. He is a Senior Lecturer in Art Processes and Architecture at the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, and has been the recipient of many awards, grants and residencies. They include the 2021 Good Design Award Australia, Gold Accolade in Architectural Design – Urban Design and Public Spaces. See: www.studiochrisfox.com Contact: chris@chrisfox.com.au

Preface

Introducing artwork by way of large scale sculpture and installations into internal and outdoor public spaces can transform our physical and visual perception of cities in space and time at various scales and enhance their architectural and landscape settings. They can establish new focal points and nodes of activity as well as change the image of the city, our experience in movement and sense of whereabouts. And they can interpret for us the cultural and environmental context in which they sit. The work of Studio Chris Fox is a demonstration of how urban places can be transformed in exciting ways through interdisciplinary effort where architecture, engineering, landscape and art come together.

Raeburn Chapman, Editor, Urban Design Review  

Philosophy and design approach

Studio Chris Fox bridges the disciplines of art, architecture and engineering to transform places with sculptural forms that aspire to push physical boundaries and possibilities, create an inspiring spatial experience and tell meaningful stories of place and people through time.

The Studio creates projects at multiple scales from site-specific artworks to large-scale integrated urban infrastructure. Integrating public art as part of urban design, is a key driver for the Studio and extends through all stages of public art from concept to design resolution, fabrication and installation.

Accessing the power of computational design is at the heart of the Studio’s success. Inputs at concept design stages include data from site analysis and archival research to help shape both conceptual direction and finished form.

By connecting with sites and context at early-stage conception, to assess potential for art as part of master planning and placemaking initiatives, the Studio aims to provoke multi-disciplinary project teams to ‘think outside the box’. The Studio in particular works in co-design with First Nations knowledge holders. Overall, it thrives through meaningful collaborations – generating unique cultural placemaking outcomes with a diverse range of creatives, stakeholders and practitioners.

The Interloop Project

In 2017, Studio Chris Fox was tasked with creating a unique heritage interpretation artwork that celebrated the stories and journeys of the people that had used these escalators for generations. Interloop is a reconfiguration of the decommissioned heritage York Street escalators, the last wooden ones in the rail network.

Interloop, Wynyard escalators prior to refurbishment

Interloop hangs from Wynyard Station’s ceiling, hovering above the escalators that travel from ground plane to the station concourse below. The installation re-uses the original wooden treads, re-calibrating them in an innovative and engaging form. The vast twisting accordion-shaped sculpture, weighing 5-tonnes, is over fifty metres in length and weaves in 244 wooden treads and four combs from the original 80 year-old escalators.

Interloop, completed artwork

 

Interloop, supporting structure pre-assembly

This suspended sculpture plays with the idea of continuous motion and connected journeys. Paying homage to the past, Interloop also signifies the future.

The result is a placemaking landmark that embodies a shared sensory memory within an engaging form. It adds to the experience and image of Wynyard station as a contemporary transport hub.

 

The Interchange Pavilion

This project, an urban design pavilion, forms a community and visual focal point of the South Eveleigh Precinct Redevelopment. The precinct is a major new retail, business centre and technology park near Redfern Station of which the heritage listed locomotive workshops are a part. South Eveleigh was previously recognised as Australian Technology Park. The revitalisation of Eveleigh is the first critical piece of the Central to Eveleigh corridor transformation in Sydney and is a catalyst for the upgrade of the surrounding neighbourhoods. This precinct is destined to become a world-class technology and innovation hub and a vibrant destination where people come together to connect physically, culturally and socially.

Interchange Pavilion, night shot south-eastern side

A range of public spaces have been created to activate the public realm for tenants and the wider community. Interchange Pavilion is part of a public art strategy at South Eveleigh, curated by Carriageworks, that creates a sculptural landmark in the heart of the Village Square.

Carriageworks is a multi-arts urban cultural precinct located in the former Eveleigh Railway Workshops in Redfern, Sydney.

Interchange Pavilion is a meeting place where tracks converge, and a place of interchange through which paths cross. Drawing inspiration from the precinct’s rail history, Studio Chris Fox worked with the salient geometries of the railroad switch – the point at which a train can change its course, moving from one trajectory to another.

The work is a tribute to the diverse stories and journeys of people connected with the Eveleigh Rail Yards. Interchange Pavilion combines robotically moulded glass reinforced concrete, 1400 pieces of router cut Australian hardwood and 250 metres of stainless steel ground rails. Studio Chris Fox designed, modelled and managed each component of the project with a computational workflow.

The result is a 350 square metre public art installation that has created a new, flexible meeting place and community event space activated from day through to night – experienced from surrounding buildings as well as the ground plane.

Interchange Pavilion, night shot, northern side

Rozelle Interchange

Three large ventilation towers, with heights equivalent to 12-storey buildings, serve the new underground motorway interchange at Rozelle Bay. As part of the motorway’s scope of works, the disused Rozelle Rail Yards have been decked over and transformed into 10 hectares of landscaped public open space which connect to Rozelle Bay with a pedestrian and cycle land-bridge.

Prominent on the skyline, the monolithic motorway stacks of this contentious large-scale interchange project sit at the edge of the new urban park on the land of both Gadigal and Wangal clans of the Dharug language group.

Studio Chris Fox has produced a landmark urban artwork wrapping around and interweaving across the ventilation towers. They have been involved with the overall landscape and urban design from the project’s beginning.

Ventilation Towers, Rozelle

The area that was once bursting with vibrant ecosystems has transformed over millennia, from the previous mudflats and mangrove forests towards more recent industrial, maritime and rail use. Studio Chris Fox’s integrated landscaped artwork looks to elevate this history with the continued stories of this unique place.

The modulated zinc panelling on the façade and the twisting steel structure wrapping the concrete towers reference the turbulent air flow of the ventilation facility and project the spatial movements of people in the vast subterranean road network below.

Enveloping the towers, this dynamic system of steel morph from the regularity of columns and beams to the organic bridge forms situated above pedestrians and cyclists. Biophilic green-wall modules further integrate the structures into the parklands and transform this infrastructure into a habitat for urban biodiversity.

The ventilation towers, which are experienced through transport movement, by pedestrians and park users, are thereby broken down, softening their form against the skyline and integrating them into the parkland. They present a new, dynamic, skyline.

The success of this mitigation artwork can only be judged over time as the project matures.

CONCLUSION

These three projects show what creative reuse of materials and sensitive consideration of cultural and built site heritage and of the environment, can bring. They navigate the complex constraints and challenges of the public domain whilst delivering, arguably, creative landmark interventions that transform urban spaces, show new possibilities of form and create new focal points in the city for the community.

Acknowledgements

Studio Chris Fox Team
Chris Fox (Artistic and Founding Director), Tina Salama, Dr. (Director), Tommaso Pagani (Project Lead and Computational Designer), Sarah Anstee (Computational Designer + BID Coordinator).

Interloop Project

Studio Chris Fox Project Team: Chris Fox, Tina Salama, Michael Fox. Commissioned by: Novo Rail Program Alliance for Transport for NSW. Computational and Fabrication Modelling: Studio Chris Fox and AR-MA. Engineered by: Bollinger+Grahmann. Fabrication: Lumark. Installation: NASS Projects. Architect: COX Architecture. Art Strategy: Cultural Capital. Photos: Josh Raymond and Chris Fox.

Interchange Pavilion Project
Studio Chris Fox Project team: Chris Fox, Justin van Ryneveld, Harry Stitt, Yuxiao Wang, Simon Giang, Tommaso Pagani, Gabriele Ulacco. Commissioned by: Mirvac (South Eveleigh). Curated by Carriageworks (Daniel Mudie Cunningham). Engineered by: Bollinger+Grohmann (Sascha Bohnenberger). Aluminium Fabrication and Installation by Lumark. GRC Fabrication by Shapeshift. Timber Fabrication by Wright Marine. GRC and Timber Installation by ACS. Groundworks by Diversified. Lighting by: Westudio and OnPoint. Landscape by Aspect and Jiwah. Photography and Videography by Josh Raymond.

Rozelle Interchange
Studio Chris Fox Project team: Chris Fox, Tommaso Pagani, Simon Giang, Yuxiao Wang, Srujan Vichare, Justin van Ryneveld, Gabriele Ulacco. Commissioned by the John Holland/CPB Contractors Joint Venture for Transport for New South Wales/WestConnex. Engineered by Bollinger Grahmann Engineer. Shop Drawings by Studio Chris Fox with bim.Group. Green walls by Junglefy. Zinc modules by CASA + DSI Facades. Steel fabrication by TSS Engineering. Rozelle Interchange overall project: Landscape Design by Hassell. Urban Design by Studio Colin Polwarth+Willow. Engineering by WSP/Arcadia. Photos by Josh Raymond and Studio Chris Fox.