The New Newcastle

Newcastle Herald

Saturday January 10, 2009

CAROLYN SWANSON

As the community debates

how to revive the citys heart,

Newcastles architects are

already breathing new life

into heritage buildings and

showing that the key to

transformation rests in the

old living comfortably

with the new, writes

CAROLYN SWANSON.

With its spectacular harbour site,

Newcastle has the natural attributes

to be a world-class city, a gritty

Venice of the South.

For in how many other places does such

a pretty jumble of hilly streets tumble into

the CBD and the harbour, the curl of Pacifi c

breakers kissing the sand at one end of a

long main street, and vineyards and golden

beaches sprawling beyond the other, the

countrys biggest city just two hours away?

As the saying goes, neither Rome nor Venice

were built in a day, and our towns fi nal

metamorphosis from the blue-collar pall of

BHPs smoke stacks to a dynamic harbour city

hovers still on the planning table.

But developers already have a green light

to breathe new life into icons like the former

Newcastle post offi ce, Newcastle Bowling

Club, the Royal hospital site, Merewethers

Surf House, the old BHP grounds and the citys

wharves. A sprawling revitalisation of the

inner-city shopping precinct is on the drawing

board, if the vexed issue of whether or not to

remove the heavy rail line into Newcastle can

be resolved.

However, it remains in the balance whether

the citys traditional CBD, threatened by Lake

Macquaries Chatswood-like development

on the Pacifi c Highway at Charlestown and

the regions sprawling suburban malls, will

prosper or falter.

Time toys with Newcastle central:

is it destined to become a derelict and

disconnected main street, or an eclectic mix

of new and old commercial and residential

buildings connected to a bustling harbour

precinct?

In the meantime, edgy architecture is

breathing new life into the inner city. The

architectural panache on display during most

recent Newcastle Open architectural walk,

held late last year, served as a reminder that

good design is essential if Newcastle is to

make more of its CBDs spectacular site.

The power of architecture to transform a

city is real and essential to a citys longevity

and relevance, David Ostinga, whose

renovated terrace featured in the Open, says.

An award-winning Newcastle-born architect

and contributor to last years Venice Biennale,

Ostinga suspects the value of architecture isnt

afforded due status within Australia.

As a participant in the Architecture

Venice Biennale, I noticed that in Europe,

architecture is taken very seriously, he says.

In our current system, architecture is a

bit player and, really, other forces, such as

council and heritage regulations as well as

developers profi t-making, have a larger

bearing on our built environment.

Venice and its biennale may seem a long

way from Newcastle, but other Newcastle

architects share Ostingas view that our towns

CBD has the makings of a gritty Venice of the

South, given its spectacular, but under-rated

position.

And while larger redevelopment proposals

stall on the drawing board or remain tied up

in red tape, Ostinga and his contemporaries

are doing their small bit to rejuvenate the city

with private projects that offer a glimpse of

how the new Newcastle could be.

Awards for Ostingas treatment of his

Newcomen Street terrace include the NSW

Royal Australian Institute of Architects

residential prize and a Lower Hunter Civic

Design Award (2006).

He adapted what was a dark and run-down

rabbit warren to create a light-fi lled atrium

with a retractable front wall, a roofl ess central

courtyard with a glass fl oor that fl oods the

ground level of the terrace with light and

allows winter sun and cooling air to penetrate

while redefi ning the perception of space.

Sliding glass walls protect the house from

the courtyard, but retract fully to create

more options for useable living space. The

new openings take advantage of the views,

cooling breezes and northerly aspect of the

reworked home.

I see this house as a prototype for the city,

Ostinga says.

The small glass-fl oored courtyard open

space works on many levels in relation to the

rooms. One of its most primary functions is

visual. It makes all of the rooms seem larger

than they are by an illusion of shared spaces.

Cities need these types of spaces to

alleviate their density and provide public

access and complexity that is often missing

from a gridded metropolis.

There should be a consideration of the

appropriate relationship between the built

and unbuilt in the public realm; the streets,

squares, colonnades and the walls that make

up our public realm are a vital part of the

mix.

Ostinga says modern buildings are

constructed to fi ll a maximum envelope that

delivers the highest economic value in the

short term. Designs are determined without

regard to an over-arching vision for the city

and public space tends to be leftover space.

The city needs to be considered as a whole,

combined of both public space and buildings

 not just buildings, as it is currently.

Some would argue that the courtyard in

my house was unjustifi ed yet it is the space

that allows all the other spaces to come

alive. A city needs to be alive in the same

way also. We need contrasting public spaces

to create a vital city. Small intimate squares,

larger expansive plazas, all are possible with

conviction.

Newcastles CBD could and should be

world-class in its design, which would

benefi t both the citys economy and cultural

vibrancy for future generations.

Another Newcastle architect, Steven

Fleming, opened his Beach Street, East End

terrace adaptation with a back wall that

folds away, almost pushing visitors into the

blue of Newcastle Baths and the ocean.

Like its neighbours, Fleming House used to

turn its back on the Pacifi c. Its turnaround

is a strong metaphorical argument for refocusing

our vision for the Newcastle CBD.

The terrace has a courtyard where once

there was a kitchen, and a tower replaces

the laundries and other small rooms that

previously ran to the rear fence line. The

tower protects the courtyard and original

two-storey terrace from southerly weather,

while the courtyard brings sun and the

sound of surf into each part of the house.

This once dingy terrace is now far more in

touch with its beachside locale.

Fleming has a PhD in architecture,

lectures in architectural history, theory and

design at the University of Newcastle and

has practised in Singapore. He believes

the solution to the CBDs future is to put

Newcastles inner-city rail underground,

using money from the sale of the prime

waterfront land above to pay for it, while

leaving a grid of green view corridors in

between six- to eight-storey towers of

inner-city apartments.

Put the train underground, extend

the grid to the harbour, then develop

the remaining airspace with shops and

apartments of six to eight storeys, Fleming

says. Wed get our seamless link to the

harbour, hundreds more families living and

shopping in the city, and our historic CBD

would be strategically positioned to become

an international gateway.

As a proud Novocastrian I cant help

dreaming of fi rst-time visitors to Australia,

arriving via Williamtown, having their fi rst

impressions formed by our beaches and fi ne

Victorian architecture.

Novocastrian Brian Suters, chair of the

Australian Architecture Association and

(with Paris-based Philippe Robert) architect

of Honeysuckles fi rst masterplan, pins

high hopes on Newcastles urban renewal

through integrated development with

its port and university, bringing more

commerce and student life into the city with

the planned relocation of several university

faculties into the CBD, expanded university

accommodation and greater connectivity to

the harbour.

Awarded the City of Newcastle Medal

last year for highly distinguished service,

Suters, who has had a profound infl uence

on Newcastles inner-city architecture, says

people are the vital ingredient for the CBDs

revitalisation.

Suterss own home is an innovatively

renovated apartment over an entire fl oor of

a recycled 1920s East End offi ce building.

Suters was part of a consortium that

bought the heritage-listed brick Hunter

Street building and added two levels to the

original four to create fi ve apartments plus

ground-fl oor space.

The renovation respected heritage

guidelines but introduced contemporary

features. The vast living area is a series

of interconnected formal and informal

spaces defi ned by partitions. A feature is a

glass balcony that opens from a deepened

window space, framing a view of the

historic post offi ce building opposite with

its sandstone walls, Palladian arches and

colonnades and the domed rooftops of both

it and Customs House behind.

His Victorian Italianate picture-postcard

view illustrates how vital it is that the inner

city retains the grandeur visited on it by the

trio of celebrated late 19th and early 20th

century colonial and government architects

 Alexander Dawson, James Barnet and

Walter Vernon  responsible for many of the

citys landmark buildings.

While the designs of Suters, Ostinga and

Fleming depict a union of the old and new,

the uptown Harbour House represents the

type of new-age architecture that could be

a metaphor for the modernisation of the

inner-city business precinct taking shape

along the harbour foreshore (see above).

A collaborative effort by Bourne + Blue

architects Shane Blue and his wife Rachael

Bourne and Peter Stutchbury, the awardwinning

house has set a benchmark for

sustainable living.

Conceived as a masonry-and-concrete

armchair built into a hill, the innovative

house uses the natural insulation of its

earth retaining wall to the south. Its cleverly

pitched roof and wooden window boxes

keep out the hot summer sun but project

the lower winter sun deep into the house.

A free fl ow of air and sunlight between

its buttressed south wall and a more open

north-facing timber pavilion, heats and cools

the building.

It is always exciting for us to get a project

in the CBD area because you can improve

the living conditions and bring more people

back into the area, Blue says.

It is saddening that the shopping malls

keep getting bigger and keep sucking the

life out of the CBD. But people who choose

to live in the CBD can walk to the shops and

walk to work and live more sustainably.

We cant build a solution to the CBD, we

need to bring people fi rst. The proposals to

move some of the university faculties into

town are a fantastic idea.

A lot of students live in town, anyway,

because they enjoy the inner-city lifestyle.

That is what we need to work on.

HARBOUR TOWN

Along the foreshore strip between rail line

and harbour, Newcastle is presenting a new

face to the world.

A glass wall of carbon-friendly, high-tech

A-grade offi ce blocks defi ne the outer edge

of the CBD at Honeysuckle, adjacent to

an emergent forest of modern residential

towers.

The workers who toil on the former wharf

space these days tend to wear suits rather

than the once regulation blue singlets. The

new Newcastle waterside worker sits at a

desk with 180-degree waterfront views,

carries a laptop instead of a tool box, ducks

out for an occasional smoko or latte at a

harbourside cafe, and pumps iron, instead of

turning it, in an architect-designed gym that

was once a railway workshop.

Honeysuckles 49,000 square metres of glasswalled

offi ce towers, its converted warehouse

and workshop developments and the Crowne

Plaza Hotel and Breakwater Apartments

are, according to the Hunter Development

Corporation, now home to 4100 offi ce

workers and 1200 residents.

Despite forecasts of diffi cult times ahead,

the past few years alone have seen the

opening at Honeysuckle of the $24 million

HQo building, the $30 million NIB Towers, the

$15 million Hunter Water building, the $12

million PriceWaterhouse building, and the

$10 million Sparke Helmore building.

The Buildev Group, which has already

developed four Honeysuckle projects, has

a development application in for another

21,370 square metres of offi ce space at

Honeysuckle Central on Lee Wharf.

But not all new development is taking place

north of the dividing line that is Newcastles

controversial inner-city rail link.

A recent addition to Newcastles much

maligned Hunter Street is the award-winning

Hunter New England Health building.

Attractive plazas and voids break up the

bulk of the powerful fi ve-storey building

at 670 Hunter Street to link it physically

to other public buildings and visually with

Honeysuckles harbour precinct across the

railway line.

Suters architects say they designed the Agrade

offi ce space to energise the existing

urban fabric of Newcastles West End and act

as a catalyst for further quality development

in the area.

The buildings warm sandstone walls blend

with Hunter Streets historic facades, and its

glass gives it a contemporary edge, making

it a conduit between the heritage-rich main

street and Honeysuckles modern towers.

© 2009 Newcastle Herald

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