With every new year comes the delivery of new projects. Here are the major projects we are eager to see in completed condition this 2024:
Stage one of the Australian Opal Centre - a $34-million museum that will house a comprehensive collection of gems and other buried treasures found in Australia's opal fields - is set to open in late 2024. Designed by Wendy Lewin in collaboration with Dunn and Hillam, and based on an initial concept by Wendy Lewin and Pritzker Prize laureate Glenn Murcutt, the building will be sited adjacent to a former opal-mining site in Lightning Ridge, New South Wales. It will feature subterranean volumes that will lead visitors deep into the earth, presenting stories of miners, machinery, fossils, and of course the opals themselves.
This new $150-million theatre in Brisbane's Southbank is set to become the largest performing arts centre in Australia. The competition winners, Norwegian practice Snøhetta and Brisbane firm Blight Rayner Architecture, vied against 23 other outfits to be crowned design team for the significant cultural project. Their winning design features a glass facade, two new studio spaces and glazed foyer spaces, as well as interwoven references to the region's First Nations people. The project has taken considerably longer than was first forecast, with initial predictions that it would be completed in 2022.
The result of another design competition, the Barangaroo Pavilion at Watermans Cove is an eagerly awaited project - especially given that one of the primary materials in the composition is local oyster shells. The shells, found locally in Sydney, will be transformed into white "oyster concrete" and used as an essential constituent in 123 columns. The pavilion will also feature a landscaped rooftop garden to provide shade over the meeting place and events space. Architect Jessica Spresser, of the eponymous Brisbane studio Spresser, designed the project in conjunction with fellow architect Peter Besley and Arup.
Sydney commuters will rejoice when six new metro train stations, including Crows Nest, Victoria Cross, Barangaroo, Martin Place, Pitt Street and Waterloo, commence services in 2024. Latest government communiques have revealed that station works are expected to be completed early in 2024, with Victoria Cross slated as the first station to open. Each station has been designed to be more accessible and inclusive than existing stations by integrating level access between platforms and trains. The 15.5-kilometre Sydney Metro City section of the project received planning approval in January 2017.
The $30-million dollar expansion of Powerhouse Museum's storage facility and discovery centre in north-west Sydney is complete, but has yet to meet fire regulations - resulting in a delayed opening. Lahznimmo Architects was engaged to bring Building J to life, enabling the Powerhouse Museum to expand its public education programs, workshops, exhibitions and events. According to the design statement, the overall form of the structure is simple and industrial in nature, with a facade that tilts, folds and peels to create openings.
