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Marion

Type

Live/Hybrid

Use

Residential apartments

Affordable housing

Student accommodation

Year

2019-ongoing

Location

Parramatta, NSW

Client

CN Marion 

Design Team

Frank Stanisic

Jason Nowosad

Seugnèt Viljoen

Collaborators

Pacific Planning

Pacific Community Housing

Yerrabingin

Illustrations

Stanisic Architects

The vision for the development is to create a breathing, living environment that is responsive to the sun, light, air and outlook that is a model for mixed use development. The existing site is low-grade commercial land that has the potential to be made much better in many respects. The proposed development will be a transformative urban project with distinguishing attributes that bind together the essential and positive characteristics that exist within the context. Most importantly, the site is able to better Connect with Country.


The site is located within a cultural landscape that has been occupied for many thousands of years and physically transformed following with the construction of the railway line. The Marion Street Precinct has been earmarked for significant redevelopment that if done well will result in a distinctive place that is framed by taller building forms along the Railway line and Church Street contrasting with low-rise suburban cottages that define Marion Street as a key cross street adjacent to Harris Park Station. The juxtaposition of tower forms against suburban cottages is not uncommon. Broadly, the podium form should belong to the local community and the tower form should responds to the scale of the city.

AERIAL VIEW OF MARION STREET PROPOSAL BY STANISIC ARCHITECTS
AERIAL VIEW OF MARION STREET PROPOSAL BY STANISIC ARCHITECTS
Enscape_2023-05-04-16-35-03_edited.jpg
CORNER VIEW OF THE MARION STREET PROJECT PROPOSAL BY STANISIC ARCHITECTS
STREET VIEW OF MARION STREET BY STANISIC ARCHITECTS
AERIAL VIEW OF MARION STREET PROPOSAL BY STANISIC ARCHITECTS

The design concept is for a building form that marks the eastern end of Marion Street at Harris Park Station with a taller urban marker that avoids a flat top urban form along the edge of the railway line.

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The building form includes a sky terrace at Level 8 and sky courts (Levels 17, 24, 31), providing enhanced communal open spaces while also assisting to break down the bulk of the building. It also creates a distinctive urban marker at the eastern end of Marion Street that contributes to the design of Place and results to a more interesting and meaningful urban form at the scale of the city and the pedestrian.


The project offers opportunities for interpreting Country and enhances the amenity of the development. The communal open spaces are integrated within the building form, providing protection from winds, and the wind impacts at the ground level are mitigated with awnings, and tree canopies. The modulation and articulation of the built form and setbacks to the north west corner and through site link provide a suitable transition to the adjoining

heritage items.

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Innovative sustainable initiatives in collaboration with Caring for Country principles are being explored to reduce the long-file carbon of the building.

While the cottages are a physical reminder of the expansion of Parramatta, it is vital that any significant development is framed by a balanced view of history, one where indigenous custodianship of Country has existed for tens of thousands of years. Acknowledging pre-contact history of the Burramattagal people as well as contemporary stories provides us with a deeper understanding of our history and develops our thinking of Australia as a Country. This can be achieved by embedding place and accessible history into the interpretation of the built form and open spaces to create a richer, safer and more meaningful pedestrian experience. Furthermore, there is also an opportunity to make a strong sustainable commitment towards the future.


This development will rejuvenate the site and context with a diversity of uses including affordable housing to take advantage of the site’s prime location and excellent amenity. In doing so, there is an added responsibility to balance the
relationship between density and social outcomes - economics, environment and social benefits. Density should be located on good land with good amenity in order to
contain urban sprawl where it can be offset by with sustainable and affordable housing as well as a high-quality and connected public domain.

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The University of NSW City Futures Research Centre shows that the Parramatta local government area is in dire need of more affordable housing. Their research shows that Parramatta has a significant unmet housing need. Currently, there are 8,600 households with unmet housing needs, which is 9 per cent of all households in the LGA. This is one of the highest proportions of unmet housing needs  cross metropolitan Sydney, and across Australia as a whole. 60 per cent of the unmet housing needs come from families. This compares with 57 per cent for the Sydney metropolitan region as a whole. If no action is taken, it is estimated that unmet need will grow to 13,100 by 2041.

Contact

(+61 2) 9358 2588

Address

Level 10, 257 Clarence Street

 Sydney NSW 2000
Australia 

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