Sydney will need to double the number of existing dwellings over the next 40 to 50
years. This means building around 1.66 million new dwellings with many of these likely
to be apartments located in urban rather than suburban areas. The Urban Taskforce
has previously championed the need for more towers around major rail stations and
this issue of Urban Ideas takes this approach further.
Our thesis is that Sydney needs to relate new infrastructure with new development. We
believe this could give an opportunity to take a holistic look at the transport network
across the metropolitan area to unify the city with a metro circle line. Added to this line
could be a series of light rail loops that focussed on major centres. New housing at urban
densities could then be located along both the metro line and along the light rail loops.
This broad concept has been developed by Michael Harrison, Greg Burgon and
Genevieve Blanchett of Architectus into the plans in this publication. We then asked Tony
MacDonald and Sally Cooper of Arterra to develop some 3D images of the concepts.
