ABSTRACT ‘Ripple’ is a project about Sydney’s relationship with water.
Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the goals of ‘Good Health & Wellbeing’, ‘Reduced Inequalities’, ‘Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure’ and ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities.’
Inspired by patterns generated by ink floating and swirling in water, it proposes a new riverside swimming facility at Sydney Olympic Park that engages with the climate change-related wicked problem of the urban heat island effect, and the ongoing challenge of pollution in the Parramatta River.
In Sydney, the urban heat island effect is a key example of a climate-change related challenge contributing to spatial inequality; as average temperatures rise and heatwaves become more frequent and extreme, Western Sydney is disproportinately affected. Parks and water bodies such as Sydney Olympic Park and the Parramatta River will play increasingly critical roles as places of cooling and recreation.
Humans’ relationship and perceptions of the Parramatta River have shifted over time. Before European settlement of Australia, the river was revered by the indigenous Wann-gal people as a spiritual entity and source of food, tradition and dreaming. Whilst early settlers marvelled at the river’s beauty, capturing it in paintings and building riverside garden estates, it was soon taken advantage of, degraded and polluted as Sydney urbanised and industrialised throughout the 20th century. In the 1990s, as Sydney prepared to host the 2000 Olympics, attention shifted once again to the river and it’s foreshore’s ecological, cultural and economic value, and efforts to remediate the contaminated water and foreshore lands began.
Building on the history of swimming areas along the Parramatta River, this project proposes a staged approach towards the rehabilitation of the Blaxland Riverside Park into a swimming and recreation facility. The project aims to apply principles and technologies of sustainable water-sensitive urban design to deal with the challenges of contamination & stormwater runoff with the long-term goal, in conjunction with other city-scale efforts, of improving water quality in the river until it is safe for swimming. Water sensitive urban design is tied into all aspects of the design, from the use of permable paving to stormwater collection and bioremediation and rainwater harvesting and reuse.
Today, the looming threat of climate change raises questions about the environmental and social sustainability of cities, their vulnerabilities and relationship to key natural resources. Addressing these vulnerabilities is key to working towards the United
The facility not only addresses the growing demand 4
