ARCHITECTURE-AS-GEOGRAPHY-CLIFF-HANGER-FORESTApostle_Concept-copy

Architecture as Geography: A Cliffhanger Forest with Roots

The Castle Residences by Candalepas Associates
110-118 Bathurst Street and 203 Castlereagh Street

Renowned architect Angelo Candalepas invited me to collaborate on integrating public art with the architecture of a fantastic concrete building.

Maria Fernanda Cardoso’s preliminary public artwork concept proposal
for 110-118 Bathurst Street and 203 Castlereagh Street conceives of the entirety of the building and its urban heritage context. Embracing and highlighting the ‘building in the round’ the artwork proposal conceives of the building as a break-away geography that becomes a living ecology, a habitat for people, plants, animals birds and insects. The architect, Angelo Candalepas original design
references to organic structures are given bold expression in Cardoso’s
proposal:

Architecture as Geography: A Cliffhanger Forest with Roots

A tough and proud plant community clings to life at the top of a building in downtown Sydney. Its canopy, constantly moving with the wind, crowns the rock-like building in defiance of its unexpected location.

From a distance, the building reminds us of a geological formation — like a broken piece of cliff separated from the mainland, having taken a chunk of forest with it (think of the famous Apostles along the Great Ocean Road). At the sides and bottom of the cliff structure are cave-like formations. Some of them are places where humans live.
Sculptural elements reminiscent of fossilised roots emerge from under the overhang above an adjacent laneway, as if exposed by the elements. They mark the main entrance to the building, and make reference to the plant community living high above.
Both elements — the bush forest on top of the building, and the root-like sculptures below — give the building a conceptual unity. The artwork as a whole transforms the architecture into a piece of geography, blurring the distinctions between natural and man-made habitats.’

Maria Fernanda Cardoso, April 2014

Project status: Completed 2022
Location: Sydney, NSW

Located in the heart of Sydney, 116 Bathurst Street (The Castle) is a 37-storey mixed-use tower combining residential, hotel and retail space. The tower’s simple architectural form emerges from an intricate structure that sensitively cantilevers over the 142-year-old, heritage-listed, Porter House. The tower sits atop a podium, composed of elements that acknowledge the local character, reflecting a sense of craftsmanship that stems from the site’s history.

The podium is composed of arches and apses, a uniform and simple expression that contributes to a sense of urban activation at street-level. It includes an art installation designed in collaboration with artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso. In contrast, the tower is defined by vertical proportions, providing a memorable juxtaposition between the old and new.

The supporting cantilever offers shelter to the public domain of the laneway eleven storeys below.

The tower, being repetitive in nature, is read as a singular compositional expression; the sense of scale being read from street-level, therefore provides depth at the street.

Crowning the top of the tower is a roof garden occupying five levels of stepped gardens, framing the sky with curved concrete elements.

https://www.candalepas.com.au/home/projects/thecastle/

Spanish