Awards for Water Police Park

Pyrmont may have gone to the dogs, as reported in City News last week – but it seems someone forgot to tell the design judges.

It may have been a bitter fight over the extent to which dogs can roam unhindered on the new Water Police Park site, but at least the park’s design is less controversial, with the redevelopment last week adding a second design award to its burgeoning portfolio. Having won the 2009 NSW Parks and Leisure Award of Excellence for playground design at the end of July, last week the site claimed another accolade, judged Australia’s best public urban landscape project at the Public Domain Awards.

In addition to taking home the ‘Best Overall Project’ award, the Water Police Park site was declared joint winner in the ‘Precincts’ category and also claimed NSW state honours, fending off competition from the new Bankstown CBD bus interchange and Macquarie University’s revitalised Central Courtyard.

Criteria included functional performance, aesthetics, economy, durability, construction, sustainability, and the overall significance of the work in relation to the public domain. In their decision, the judges cited the park’s combination of history and waterfront environment with contemporary forms and materials to create, “an outcome of apparent simplicity and exemplary coherence.”

Created in 1996, the biennial awards are organised by Cement Concrete & Aggregates Australia (CCAA), a not-for-profit organisation representing the heavy construction materials industry, and “recognise the innovative and functional use of concrete to enhance the public domain”. According to its chief executive Ken Slattery, the awards celebrate infrastructure projects which connect with the community at a fundamental level, such as parks, roadways, malls, transport interchanges, bridges and public artworks.

“At a time when governments around Australia are focussing on infrastructure, these projects contain some important lessons on how to deliver value-for-money public infrastructure,” he said. “They highlight the importance of good design, construction and materials in achieving outcomes that are practical, lasting and pleasing to the eye.”

In July, the Water Police Park also received praise from the Parks and Leisure judges, who said the provision of facilities reflected both a commitment to design excellence, as well as, “a substantial budget that is generally not available in most council areas.” The same set of awards also saw praise bestowed on the Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre in Ultimo, which won the ‘Design, Development, Management – leisure facilities’ category.