Save our Sirius: iconic building faces demolition - The Feed

Man About the Sirius Apartments

On Saturday, Tim Ross (Rosso) and Kit Warhurst performed Man About the Sirius Apartments to a full house. Almost 200 people squeezed into the Phillip Room, the ground-floor community room of the Sirius Apartments, to hear Tim explain, “We have presented this show inside iconic building across Australia, and now we are starting to do them across the world.” The difference this time was that it was the first time they had performed in an iconic building in danger of being demolished.

To see Sirius alive with music and people, go to http://millerspointcommunity.com.au/man-sirius-apartments/

Thank you to everyone who attended Man About the Sirius Apartments. It was fantastic to see so many supporters!


We have now launched the Crowdfunding campaign we announced on Saturday. The funds will be used to form a legal action against the Minister's decision to not place Sirius on the State Heritage Register.

Visit & Share Our campaign www.startsomegood.com/saveoursirius

As supporters of Sirius you have a valuable role, and we appreciate any help you can provide to our campaign. Click here, or see below for details on how you can be directly involved.

Thank you,

Shaun Carter
Chair, Save Our Sirius Foundation
NSW Chapter President, Australian Institute of Architects


"The official view in heritage terms is you really only need to meet one criterion. If you think it is significant to the State on aesthetic grounds, then it is significant to the State.”
— Stephen Davies, Chair NSW Heritage Council


Our Challenge

The Save Our Sirius Foundation believes the Minister for Heritage has not made the necessary and proper considerations on relevant matters in rejecting the Heritage Council's recommendation to list Sirius Apartments on the State Heritage Register. We will be asking the Environmental Defenders Office to launch a legal action to have the Minister's decision reviewed and annulled. Forcing the Minister and the Government to give due weight to the relevant facts in re-making their decision.
We must remember the Heritage Council voted unanimously to recommend Sirius for listing on the State Heritage Register on the grounds of:
Aesthetics (exemplar Brutalist Architecture), and
History with the Green Bans movement within The Rocks. Minister Mark Speakman rejects the Heritage Council's recommendation, whilst admitting the heritage, said he preferred the money instead. Saying "I am not [heritage] listing it because, whatever its heritage value, even at its highest, that value is greatly outweighed by what would be a huge loss of extra funds from the saleof the site."


How You Can Help

There are a number of ways you can show your support to save Sirius.
Choose a reward: By choosing a reward you are joining our team and pledging your support to save Sirius. Our campaign is now online at www.startsomegood.com/SaveOurSirius

Share our campaign: To be successful we need to share the campaign far and wide. Talking with friends and family about our project and sharing this page will help us spread the message about saving Sirius.
Share this link: www.startsomegood.com/SaveOurSirius

Get Social: Share your images and stories on social media with #SaveOurSirius & follow the campaign on Instagram: @save_our_sirius

Want to do more? If you would like to do more, please contact the Save Our Sirius Foundation via mail@carterwilliamson.com

RESOURCED: https://www.startsomegood.com/SaveOurSirius  

Hundreds of supporters gather in fresh bid to save Sydney’s famous brutalist building Sirius

Hundreds of supporters gather in fresh bid to save Sydney’s famous brutalist building Sirius

A fresh bid to save Sydney’s most famous brutalist building from the wrecking ball saw hundreds of supporters turn up to the 1970s apartment complex on Saturday for a rare glimpse inside.

The government’s ruling to evict its public housing tenants and allow the iconic building to be knocked down is yet another blow to the community of Millers Point after a swathe of government houses were sold off despite much protest in the inner-city suburb this year.
But stand-up comedian Tim Ross, who performed in the foyer of the Sirius building to a sold-out crowd, hoped that with more awareness and enough public pressure, the government would reverse its decision not to list the public housing block on the state’s heritage register.
Comedian Tim Ross performed in the Sirius Building to a sold-out audience on Saturday. Photo: Supplied
The comedian and architecture enthusiast said that by performing inside Sirius he was hoping to spark a conversation about how beautiful and important the building was.
“People have been conditioned to think it’s ugly, but people’s opinions can change,” he said.
He warned that by knocking down significant buildings like Sirius, a cultural vacuum was being created in Sydney. “It’s a city in decline and the finger has to be pointed at these middle-class suburban men.”
The Sirius public housing building will not be heritage listed Photo: Wolter Peeters
Despite the Heritage Council unanimously recommending the building be heritage listed for its aesthetic and historic merit, NSW Environment and Heritage Minister Mark Speakman rejected the request in July.

“Everything about [the decision] is absurd. They personally don’t like it, so that’s the end of it,” Ross said.
“They love [artistic events like] Vivid but Vivid doesn’t happen without the cultural class.”
Stand-up comedian Tim Ross offered guests a rare glimpse inside Sirius. Photo: Ingrid Fuary-Wagner
Along with renewed public pressure, Shaun Carter, NSW Chapter President of the Australian Institute of Architects, said they were also crowdfunding for legal action to have the minister’s decision annulled.
Mr Carter believed the government had not considered all the information about Sirius before making his decision.
But Mr Speakman said he would not be persuaded to revoke his decision on the non-heritage status of Sirius.
The Philip Room inside the Sirius building was packed for a performance by Tim Ross. Photo: Ingrid Fuary-Wagner
“Listing the Sirius building on the State Heritage Register would have come at a huge opportunity cost, possibly in the order of about $70 million which can be used to fund approximately 240 extra social housing properties,” Mr Speakman said.
He acknowledged that while a financial sacrifice was often appropriate to maintain heritage, in this case the cost greatly outweighed any heritage value of the building.
 “I made my decision after careful consideration and have no intention of changing it.”
The view of the Sydney Opera House from one of the apartments in the Sirius Complex Photo: Ingrid Fuary-Wagner
But Mr Carter still holds high hopes for the future of Sirius.
“I think the decision is political. He [the Minister] is smart but I think his hand is being forced.
“The rest of the world seems to have got the memo on brutalist architecture, and there’s not a whole lot of it.
“You could list it, renovate it, it’s a valuable site for anyone. It could even be turned into a boutique hotel.”

RESOURCED: http://www.domain.com.au/news/hundreds-of-supporters-show-up-in-fresh-bid-to-save-sydneys-famous-brutalist-building-sirius-20160820-gqxc5z/

Dollars trump humanity in NSW public land purge - Eureka Street

 Dollars trump humanity in NSW public land purge

Catherine Marshall |  17 August 2016

The One Way Jesus sign, previously propped against the windowsill so that commuters coming in on the train each morning might see it and so receive some succour, is gone.
The Brutalist building — so ugly on the eye when I first saw it all those years ago, now a familiar milestone on the journey into the city — has been condemned to an undignified death; soon it will be demolished, a luxury apartment building erected in its stead. The long-term residents have packed their meagre belongings and gone (though not without a fight).

Such is the pattern of progress in New South Wales, under a government that has no compunction in selling public land to the person whose wallet is the fattest.

At Barangaroo, James Packer's high-rollers-only casino soars heavenwards, altering forever Sydney's skyline and the shady economy that helps fuel it; the wedge of foreshore carved out of Barangaroo for public use has transformed the city, too, but it feels like a bribe from a government keen to keep its constituents quiet.

And there, across the railway tracks and overlooking the Opera House on the other side of the bridge, that staggered, Brutalist, Sirius building, with its lilac-painted rooftop pot plants and drooping lace curtains and public housing tenants, is wrenched back from those who need it most and delivered into the hands of profiteers.

The terrace houses in nearby Millers Point, where Mary MacKillop and her Josephite Sisters worked among the poorest, and which have housed some of the most disadvantaged since, are sold off to private buyers with enough money to both purchase the title deeds and eradicate the stench of poverty.

And no-one complains, for money has become our god, and we all know that it is harder for a poor man to enter an earthly kingdom than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

Nor should a poor man be allowed to live in a place as heavenly as this; once the site of bubonic plague and the playground for ragged orphans, it is now a blue ribbon harbourside neighbourhood filled with residents who look to be a better fit: educated folk who walk with confidence, who have jobs to go to and a purpose to fulfil.

"A society that values its poorest citizens, that elevates them to the loftiest of positions and judges them on what they need rather than what they are worth, is one that sees humanity where it might otherwise see dollars."

The rich, we seem to be saying when we fail to oppose our government's sale of public land and public housing, are far more deserving of access to the foreshore, of that fresh air and proximity to the city, than are the poor. If you can pay for it yourself, it's yours; if you've acquired it through the public purse then part of it is mine, and why should you have that water view I could never afford myself?

But there's no democracy in parcelling off tracts of land for exclusive use by the rich. There's no diversity in cities engineered to exclude the most marginalised. There's little social cohesion in regions that have been sliced up into a series of sterile, discrete, distinctly homogenous neighbourhoods.

And — something to consider, perhaps, for those who oppose welfare and the people who rely on it — there's little incentive for the well-off to be grateful for what they have when they're quarantined from the poor. Our own sense of wellbeing is influenced and reinforced by our perception of the wellbeing of others. It often happens that when those around us have more than we do, we feel worthless; when we're frequently exposed to poverty, we feel grateful for what we have.

The poor are not exhibits, of course, and their presence in affluent areas shouldn't serve to make us feel better — or worse — about ourselves. But it should help us to feel better about the city in which we live, for a society that values its poorest citizens, that elevates them to the loftiest of positions and judges them on what they need rather than what they are worth, is one that sees humanity where it might otherwise see dollars. And we must never forget this: what such a society does to the least of its brethren, that it will do to us, too.

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Catherine Marshall is a Sydney-based journalist and travel writer.

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      RESOURCED: http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=49742#.V7WoGXnr3mQ  

Another slap in the face for Sydney public housing residents

Another slap in the face for Sydney public housing residents

                              Australian politics

Sirius building in Millers Point

 Lisa Moon

16 August 2016

Public housing residents at the Sirius complex in Millers Point, Sydney, are outraged that the government has rejected a unanimous recommendation from the NSW Heritage Council that the building be given a heritage listing.

To add insult to injury, the residents, who are being evicted so that the site can be handed over to rich developers, were told that the bid to have their homes saved had failed hours after media had already broken the story.

According to Barney Gardner, a lifelong resident of Millers Point and spokesperson for the Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks Public Housing Tenants Group, said that a media release went out at 12am on 7 August, and the story appeared in the morning’s papers.

“At 9am on a Sunday morning, a relocation officer was knocking on the doors of the tenants. They said, ‘How you going? Just letting you know the building isn’t going to be heritage listed. Just a courtesy because we didn’t want you to hear about it in the media’”, Gardner told Red Flag.
“They’re saying it’s courteous to knock on someone’s door at 9am on a Sunday morning to tell them the building is going to be knocked down and you have to get out.”

Gardner said the situation is a slap in the face reminiscent of the threat made on their homes two years ago, when Red Flag first reported on the issue.

“This is like 2014 again, when it was announced on national TV and then we had letters slipped under our door”, he said.

Twelve residents remain in the Sirius building, occupying eight units in the 79-unit complex.
Residents are hoping for support from the CFMEU, whose predecessor organisation, the Builders Labourers’ Federation, vowed to protect the building until the end of its lease. The BLF placed green bans on the whole of The Rocks and Millers Point area, which meant that unionised construction workers would refuse to work on any site if it meant the demolition of working class housing.

“There was an old story that the building, if it was to be threatened before the lease was up – and the lease ran for 52 years, from 1978-2030 – that the green ban would be reissued”, Gardner said.

Resourced: https://redflag.org.au/node/5439

 

In praise of the Sirius building, a ruined remnant of idealistic times.

sydney.edu.au

In praise of the Sirius building, a ruined remnant of idealistic times.

The Sirius building in Sydney.

At night, its lights are out and it is merely a black, stepped shape against the slightly less black sky. There is a stairwell light, for security I suppose, and scattered around the 78 apartments, 12 or so residents still inhabit the place (although they will be rehoused soon).


In the daylight, the building has never looked better. Despite the lack of residents the rooftop gardens are flourishing as plants spill over their beds and down the cement walls. Sirius has finally become what Sydney Harbour always needed: an ornamental folly, an out-dated and Romantic ruin.


Driving southbound, I note that there is a large agave plant on the roof terrace, immediately at the level of the bridge deck, with a 2 metre long bloom spike hunched over under its own weight. The remaining gardens – by design or through a cruel form of natural selection – contain the most fashionable plants of the moment: hardy heath plants — exotic, sculptural and water saving. An agave flowers spectacularly but only once and the plant dies. It is the perfect floral symbol for the situation.


It is on the run to ruin that finally Sirius is telling its story most loudly. The empty shell of a building points to the failure of its 70s dream that even public and low cost housing should have a city water view. It embodied the idea that social housing should be mixed: from the elderly to the young; from families to singles; from essential services (teachers, cleaners etc.) to those on the pension.


The Sirius, by the architect Tao Gofers, is a product of its time. Built in 1979 – to provide public housing for people relocated from the Rocks during the time of the green bans – it lasted merely 37 years. Its failure communicates as much about society as its success. As Tim Edensor wrote in his book Industrial Ruins: Spaces, Aesthetics and Materiality,
Ruined space is ripe with transgressive and transcendent possibilities… They offer opportunities for challenging and deconstructing the imprint of power on the city.


At its time, the building was seen as a marvel. In the post war period there was a public housing boom, with an attempt to house people in more hygienic, more modern and more comfortable homes. The documentary Utopia London is a very good starting point to explore the humanist values that drove the architects of public housing at this time.


The Sirius, although relatively late in this process, shared many of those hopes for architecture’s ability to change lives. Many of the original residents of the Sirius would not have had, even beside the harbour views, any of its comforts before – from modern plumbing to new kitchens. The public areas featured bespoke carpets, artwork, leisure areas and libraries. Roof top terraces and courtyard gardens provided for outdoor space. The Sirius also has tenant parking. These amenities fostered a sense of community that the residents remember fondly.


The Sirius references buildings such as Habitat 67 by the Canadian Moshe Safdie. Both share a modular unit made (carefully in the factory) from prefabricated concrete. The repetition has a clear graphic quality when seen from afar, and the curved frames around the windows create strong contrasting shadows and a futuristic, 2001 Space Odyssey feel. At street level, the three storey sections fit sensitively within an area of similarly scaled and proportioned terraces.


Each module, one presumes, equals some sort of family unit, from singles to four bedroom doubles, and like a beehive, everyone is equal; the big move of the building is to represent a metaphor of togetherness and democratic value.

Brutalism was known as the human face of late modernism, replacing the universalising steel/glass box with a more site specific and materially rich experience. Overall the whole grain of the building becomes more detailed and humane. At the Sirius, complex bricks are used in garden areas, bespoke steel is used for fine handrails, and the architect himself designed elegant wooden sculptures for the common areas. The concrete has the impressed cast of natural wood grain, not a machined smoothness. To understand the building you have to come close to it to experience these textures and materials. Obviously the major softening device is the garden bed that breaks up the hard edges of the module successfully and turns the raked building into a form of urban cliff face with hardy windswept trees.


There is a real generosity of spirit in this building, it is respectful of the residents’ original suggestions and it is built to the highest quality. Many in the architectural fraternity mark this period as the last when the architect, rather than the developer, led the project.


It exemplifies a 70s-era hope for a free and equal society. Indeed it is now demonstrable that the period was the most equitable in human history. Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century suggests that since then, the gap between the haves and have-nots has widened. The story of the Sirius Building is a manifestation of this fall.


Rem Koolhaas, one of the world’s leading architects, recently opined.
In the last 30 years, architecture has been deeply influenced by the conversion of things: Thatcher and Reagan, moving from a welfare state to a market economy. Architects used to be connected to good intentions, notionally at least. With the market economy, we’ve slowly found ourselves supporting, at best, individual ambitions and, at worst, pure profit motives. In that sense, every crisis perhaps presents an opportunity.


In the last 30 years, architecture has been deeply influenced by the conversion of things: Thatcher and Reagan, moving from a welfare state to a market economy. Architects used to be connected to good intentions, notionally at least. With the market economy, we’ve slowly found ourselves supporting, at best, individual ambitions and, at worst, pure profit motives. In that sense, every crisis perhaps presents an opportunity.


I applaud Koolhaas’s optimism. In the meantime The Sirius Building as ruin signifies a radical shift away from modernist utopian faith in social justice and the beautiful life for everyone.


If I were in a kingly position I would knock the building down as soon as possible to silence its ethical evocation once and for all.
Republished courtesy of The Conversation. Written by Dr Oliver Watts, Sydney curator, artist, writer and lecturer at Sydney College of the Arts.

RESOURCED: http://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2016/08/04/in-praise-of-the-sirius-building--a-ruined-remnant-of-idealistic.html

August 13 2016  Damien Murphy

Sydney is beginning to "sleep walk to social immobility" and unless people, government and the private sector urgently embrace radical change to housing policies affordable housing will disappear.
This is the scenario painted by the Committee for Sydney's chief executive Tim Williams as figures suggest it takes 13 times the average annual salary to purchase a home.



Committee For Sydney CEO Tim Williams says despite housing affordability reaching crisis, governments and developers were ignorant about the damage being done to communities. 
He said affordability had reached crisis yet governments and developers seemed blithely ignorant about the damage being done to communities where diversity had been priced out.

"Australian cities are beginning to sleep walk to social immobility," Dr Williams said.

The Sirius public housing building will not be heritage listed Photo: Wolter Peeters

"We need to refresh the Australian fair go commitment to a Sydney for all. We need to embrace the diversity that we used to embrace;  we're living in a quite tribal city. We need to bridge that divide and we need new policies: The way the government disposes of its own land must change.

"The committee thinks there is a very big discussion to be had on this matter because in a sense we're not enabling out own children to grow up in the areas we grew up in."

Dr Williams said the continuing controversy over the Baird government's decision to evict public housing tenants from the Sirius building in the Rocks, was an example of the need to recalibrate policy on affordable housing.

"The government is not yet committed to affordable housing even on its own land so we are challenging government that when it sells public land, it doesn't just sell it at top dollar, but actually sells it with a commitment to a proportion of affordable housing of sub-market rental housing on its own land," he said.

"We would look to the government to have a requirement for a minimum number of affordable units (in whatever replaces the Sirius building) set aside."

Dr Williams said the government should legislate to require the private sector to set aside 10 or 15 per cent - of a development for affordable housing.

"The private sector will buy land subject to the knowledge that they are going to have to do some affordable housing on it," he said.

"They have to know what is coming and it musn't change from council to council, from year to year, so they can factor this into their land purchase."

All our innovations, be it with rents, jobs, or education, have all been aimed at keeping the community in the community.

Sir Robin Wales, mayor of Newham, East London

Over the years much research recommended the imposition of a component of affordable housing on land or properties bought by developers but governments bolted under the sort of barrage that greeted negative gearing in the last federal election campaign.

The Committee for Sydney sponsored a visit by Sir Robin Wales, the mayor of Newham in East London, who has been extraordinarily successful in linking jobs with housing affordability and taking his municipality from being the second most deprived local government authority six years ago to the 25th.

Under the Labor knight's leadership, Newham established a wholly owned company that builds and acquires properties to rent and used the profits to provide affordable housing; it also licensed private rented properties to give tenants more protection  - a move that has resulted in nearly 800 landlords being prosecuted with some exposed as tax evaders - and provided free meals to primary school children and a musical instrument for every student.

"Every middle-class kid has a musical instrument, so its right and proper that we should provide working-class kids with the same privilege," Sir Robin said.
"All our innovations, be it with rents, jobs, or education, have all been aimed at keeping the community in the community. Much of greater London has been hollowed out as properties and jobs grew apart, but we've managed to arrest that in Newham and it might be a light for Sydney to follow. For it, like every other big city, is seeing diversity squashed as the poor and jobless are driven further and further away."

SOURCED: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/government-developers-should-stop-chasing-big-dollars-and-provide-affordable-housing-20160812-gqr0mg.html 

Aug 13, 2016

The Sirius building

Tim Ross

The proposed demolition of the Sirius building in Sydney robs Australians of an iconic piece of Brutalist architecture.



The Sirius building, at The Rocks, Sydney.                             Allshots Imaging / Creative Commons

I certainly wasn’t the first slightly flabby Melburnian to be seduced by the Emerald City, but I might well be the first who could attribute his love affair to a Brutalist block of flats.

In the spring of 1997, I was on tour in Sydney and spent an afternoon wandering around the city that Robin Boyd had so simply and brilliantly described as being “so Australian”. 

On that day, the old Sydney mind tricks were in full swing. The sun was out and the harbour was doing its sparkly, suggestive thing and the sails on the most extraordinary building in the world were showing off as usual. I couldn’t help but swoon and sigh as I tightened the jumper I’d taken off and tied around my waist. It was the first time I felt the overpowering pull of a city that had such penetrating beauty it could instantly turn your walk into a skip.

I was basking in the clichés when I spotted a building on the other side of the bridge Hoges used to paint.

There it was: a stunning series of concrete-form boxes appearing to be stacked on top of each other like blocks, a futuristic mass of glorious 1970s Brutalism. These apartments, with their roof gardens and their intriguing purple stacks, immediately took me. As I stood there staring, a bloke walked by and mumbled, “Can you believe it’s full of housos?”

The building was Sirius, the last and arguably most successful example of Australia’s experiment with high-rise public housing. It was designed by government architect Tao Gofers in 1978-79 and was opened in 1980. 

The 79-apartment complex was a product of a tumultuous period in The Rocks during the ’60s and ’70s, when the unions enforced green bans and halted the widespread destruction of historic sections of the area.

Today it sits like a time capsule, virtually unchanged since 1980. It is a wonderful building to be in and be around. Like all great Brutalist architecture, it’s so functional it hurts; but when you are in contact with it, it’s softer, warmer, more attractive than you would imagine. 

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but enthusiasts of this style of architecture often draw their affection from its popularity in the new schools and universities built in the ’60s and ’70s. These buildings represented a changing of the guard in our built environment as we threw off the shackles of a colonial past and endeavoured to create a new nation in a brave new style.

Sirius certainly isn’t the New South Wales government’s cup of tea. Not only has the government elected to discontinue its contribution to public housing, but it has condemned this Sydney icon to the wrecking ball.

Not content at moving people from their homes to clean up this part of town for our new casino, the Baird government has rejected the building’s heritage listing despite a strong recommendation by both the state Heritage Council and the Australian Institute of Architects to do otherwise.

The minister for the environment and heritage, Mark Speakman, defended his decision based on the value of the property. “I am not listing it because, whatever its heritage value, even at its highest that value is greatly outweighed by what would be a huge loss of extra funds from the sale of the site,” he said.

This greedy grab for cash at the cost of an important part of Sydney’s history became even more farcical when the finance minister, Dominic Perrottet, chimed in: “Our city deserves better, and we now have a chance to deliver a building that genuinely complements our dazzling harbour rather than sticking out like a sore thumb.”

The absurdity of the heritage minister talking about money and the finance minister taking a stance on aesthetics makes it seem like these two bananas are playing a rather lame game of good vandal/bad vandal.

These two are no better than your average local council officials making decisions about design without adequate qualifications and, more frighteningly, taste.

It’s too easy to imply these guys are in bed with developers or big business. Besides, that would be giving these numbnuts way too much credit.

They’re too busy being the guys at a suburban barbecue who stand around in oversized check shirts and pleated chinos, boring everyone senseless about property prices.

Both made a judgement based on greed, one which ignored the opinion of experts. This isn’t a new phenomenon in NSW, where for a long time there was a great deal of contempt for the Opera House. Architecture isn’t pizza – not everyone is supposed to love it – but the government should understand that Sirius embodies a layer in the time span of a city, one that can be appreciated in different ways for many years to come.

In London, Brutalist landmarks such as the Barbican are widely acknowledged for the merit of design, and apartments there are highly sought after. There is no reason why the same thing cannot happen here.

If the government is hell-bent on getting its gold for the former homes of some of our most needy, at least it could give the building a chance to live on in another guise as a tower of sympathetically updated apartments, or as one of the great designer hotels of the world.

It wouldn’t take much more than a proper sandblasted clean for people to start seeing it as the impressive piece of architecture that it is.

RESOURCED : https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2016/08/13/the-sirius-building/14710104003587

  #‎BattleForWaterloo‬ ‪#‎auspol‬ ‪#‎ausunions‬ ‪#‎nswpol‬ ‪#‎housing‬
‪#‎savemillerspoint‬ #BattleForWaterloo #auspol #ausunions #nswpol #housing ‪#‎socialhousing‬ ‪#‎community‬ ‪#‎publichousing‬ ‪#‎Sydney‬ ‪#‎nswisnotforsale‬ ‪#‎SaveOurHomes‬ ‪#‎SavethePowerhouse‬ ‪#‎SaveParramattaFemaleFactory‬ ‪#‎NoWestConnex‬ ‪#‎WestConnex‬ ‪#‎SaveSydneyPark‬ ‪#‎SaveAshfieldPark‬ ‪#‎SaveSydneysSandstones‬ ‪#‎SavingMoorePark‬ ‪#‎SavingSydneysTrees‬ ‪#‎SOSSirius‬ ‪#‎SOSBrutalisms

Harbour Control Tower overlooking Sydney Harbour Bridge soon to be gone

Harbour Control Tower overlooking Sydney Harbour Bridge soon to be gone

SYDNEY, Australia - Demolition of the Sydney landmark, the Harbour Control Tower, overlooking Sydney Harbour from Barangaroo is about to get underway.

The area surrounding the decades-old tower, also known as the Sydney Port Operations and Communications Centre, has now been cordoned off for 5 months while a major mast-climbing platform has been erected around the tower.
There will be no controlled-demolition by explosives, or wrecking balls, instead the tower will be slowly dismantled by two remote-controlled robots, each weighing about 1.6 tonnes. The robotic excavators will push pulverised material into the shaft of the structure, with one truck a day used to cart the rubble away.
According to a report earlier this year in The Sydney Morning Herald, it will be the first time the method will be used in Australia.
"We chose this option because it is very low impact we are in a urban environment, we are in a park surrounded by park lands. It's very low impact, it is very good with noise, low dust, low vibration, so it is very good for this setting," Clinton Dick, of the contracted deconstruction company Liberty Industrial told the Herald at the time.
The decision to remove the tower has been a controversial one with residents and many in Sydney and New South Wales opposing it. One of the most critical opponents has been the National Trust.
The Trust was highly critical of the Barangaroo Delivery Authority’s handling of the demolition decision-making process which is said emphasised, "the total inadequacy of the Authority’s response and handling of this issue which strikes at the heart of heritage protection in NSW."
Last year the Trust said that if one of the last state significant historic remnants of Sydney’s port operations could not be saved then the Barangaroo Delivery Authority was "highlighting the current failure of the NSW planning system to protect our most important heritage when State Significant Development is allowed to totally override heritage protection for places considered to be of State Heritage Significance."
The Harbour Control Tower was listed on the Register of the National Trust in May, 2010 as an Item of Environmental Heritage on the Heritage Register of Sydney Ports before the ownership was transferred to the Barangaroo Delivery Authority. The authority does not maintain a Heritage Register, a requirement of NSW Heritage legislation and the BDA failed to acknowledge the heritage significance and listing of the tower.
On 2 June, 2014 the National Trust nominated the tower for listing on the State Heritage Register and at its meeting of 2 July, 2014 the Heritage Council of NSW gave notice of its intention to consider listing of the Tower on the State Heritage Register in acknowledgement of its significance to the people of NSW. The Heritage Council then recommended its listing on the State Heritage Register but on 25 July, 2015 the Minister for Heritage Mark Speakman announced that he had decided that the tower should not be listed on the State Heritage Register. “I consider that the (Harbour Control) Tower is not of State heritage significance for importance in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics,” he said.
Although other uses for the tower had been put forward, Mr Speakman said: “I consider that while there are conflicting views as to whether the tower is of State heritage significance for other reasons, in any event a listing would render the tower incapable of reasonable or economic use, and, in particular, there would be no financially sustainable adaptive reuse of the tower.”
On 1 May 2014 the National Trust says it received notice from the Department of Planning & Infrastructure of an application by the Barangaroo Delivery Authority to demolish the Harbour Control Tower. On 19 June, 2014 the National Trust put in a submission on the demolition proposal finding the proposal’s Statement of Heritage Impact to be inadequate and its conclusions unsupportable.
The Barangaroo Delivery Authority notified the National Trust on 29 July, 2014 that it intended to proceed with the demolition despite objections and the Heritage Council’s intention to list the tower on the State Heritage Register.
The Harbour Control Tower was built to oversee shipping movements in and out of Port Jackson. It provided lines of sight to all major wharfage areas in Sydney Harbour. It became operational in 1974, after the conversion of the finger wharves at Darling Harbour into longshore roll-on/roll-off container terminals.
It consists of a reinforced concrete column with an internal lift, topped by stainless steel and glass observation and operations areas.
The reinforced concrete base of the tower is 7.6m in diameter by 2.9m deep with connected plant and pump rooms and emergency equipment storage. Foundations are embedded into rock and rock anchors penetrate 7.9m to provide adequate anchorage. A circular reinforced concrete shaft 4.9m in diameter rises from the base; housing lift, stairs and ducting for services.
The three upper floors are 10m in diameter and cantilever from the shaft, while the roof framework is 15.2m in diameter. Wind loading was a critical factor in designing the tower.
The Harbour Control Tower rises 87m above sea level. Wind loading was a critical factor in designing the tower. Potential problems of structural strength in high winds were overcome by switching from pre-stressed to reinforced concrete and increasing the weight of the building at the top.
The tower has been redundant since 2011, when vessel control services were transferred to Port Botany. As technology advanced and commercial shipping in Sydney Harbour dwindled, it was no longer necessary to have sightlines on the harbour 24 hours a day. The Port Authority of NSW's $10.5 million Vessel Traffic Services system, which includes six radars and nine CCTV cameras, monitors Sydney Harbour and Port Botany.
So why is it being demolished, particularly in light of the significance given it by the National Trust?
The government says it doesn't fit in with its overall vision for Barangaroo Reserve, which was to restore a naturalistic look for the headland for everyone to enjoy. Plus the essential character of Millers Point is of low-rise buildings , it says.
Like the Harbour Control Tower itself, the extensive container wharves it overlooks and monitored were not heritage listed.
Bungee jumping over Barangaroo, a viewing tower offering sweeping panoramas over Sydney Harbour, a “pop-out” platform and café, and a base for abseiling were among the alternative uses that were floated for the Harbour Control Tower. However, for various reasons, the government decided the building was not appropriate for such activities. The Barangaroo Delivery Authority investigated alternative usage but concluded that the significant access, structural and liability issues identified precluded any retention and reuse options. Plus, the authority said, experienced commercial leisure operators approached to gauge interest in a leisure/adventure use of the tower advised that they had no interest in pursuing the opportunity, given the physical limitations of the existing tower and the prohibitive costs of modification.
The Barangaroo Delivery Authority engaged Turner & Townsend Thinc as external project managers and Liberty Industrial, an Australian company providing industrial deconstruction contracting and consulting services with a track record in dismantling, deconstruction and land remediation.
In 2015, Liberty Industrial received a World Deconstruction Award for the controlled explosive deconstruction of the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere, the 432m high Omega Transmission Tower in Darriman, Victoria. In 2014, the company received two awards for the Hismelt Closure project in Western Australia, one being that year’s Industrial Deconstruction Award and the other the overall 2014 World Deconstruction Award, which recognised the best of the best across all 2014 award categories.
The NSW government says Liberty Industrial has wide-ranging experience in complex demolition projects, from gas plant and asbestos removal for clients such as BHP Billiton to the demolition of the Hammerhead Crane at the Garden Island Naval Base, NSW, for the Department of Defence.
While the Harbour Control Tower is being demolished, another Sydney landmark built at the same time, the Sydney Opera House, is to have a $247-million makeover, the NSW State Government announced on Thursday.


RESOURCED: http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/246623625/harbour-control-tower-overlooking-sydney-harbour-bridge-soon-to-be-gone

 

Why Sirius Matters

Why Sirius Matters

 

By alex McKinnon 09th August 2016

 

Sydney is about to lose one of its most polarising landmarks. What does this mean for the future of our city?

Last week the NSW state government announced plans to demolish the iconic Sirius public-housing building in The Rocks, and replace it with luxury apartments.
Most people in Sydney can instantly picture the Sirius building, even if they don’t know it by name. It’s that wonky set of giant concrete steps you pass as you drive over the Harbour Bridge. For years its most famous feature was a sign in one of the windows reading, “ONE WAY! JESUS”.
Sirius has always attracted attention and controversy. Public opinion has been divided between those who dismiss it as an eyesore (some senior members of the state government who plan to knock it down among them) and those who regard its blocky exterior and strong resemblance to a pile of cement-covered Lego pieces with affection.
Former Archibald Prize winner Del Kathryn Barton called the decision a “cultural tragedy”. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has for the past several years used her limited power in local government to try to at least help the building’s residents. She has said Sirius was “exactly the kind of building our heritage protections are for”.
But the people who lived in Sirius’s weird, shoebox-like units are just as worthy of attention as the building that houses them – reminders of a Sydney most of us couldn’t imagine.
A couple of years ago, a long-time Sirius resident named Jack taught me a trick from when The Rocks was a raucous, working-class suburb full of sailors, dockworkers and roving street gangs – how to turn a newspaper into a semi-deadly weapon. Open it up to the centrefold, roll it lengthwise, bend the rolled-up tube in half and voilà: a makeshift club that can do serious damage. Jack also shared some dubious advice on the throat-slitting abilities of your standard two-dollar hair comb.
If many Sydneysiders don’t get why a big lump of grey concrete blocks is worth preserving, let alone in such a prized part of the city, it’s worth looking at how old buggers like Jack wound up living in Sirius in the first place.
The beating heart of the building has always been its public-housing tenants, mostly pensioners who grew up in the area. These erstwhile Rocks residents were at the centre of the famous Green Bans movement, a years-long battle in the 1970s between property developers who wanted to build skyscrapers along Circular Quay’s western edge and the local community who opposed them. The historic buildings in The Rocks that were slated for demolition, including precious relics of Sydney's convict beginnings and Cadmans Cottage, Sydney's oldest-surviving building, were preserved instead, and are still there today. Had the Green Bans movement never existed, The Rocks would likely resemble other forgettable, overdeveloped parts of the city such as the CBD or Darling Harbour. The largely working-class locals were moved into Sirius, which has 79 public-housing units, in 1979.
Sirius is a complex designed specifically to enrich the lives of the people who live in it. Unlike many public-housing projects, the design includes courtyard gardens, artworks and common areas to foster a sense of community. Its crooked rows of apartments are deliberately staggered in height and alignment to reduce traffic noise from the bridge, and its layout was designed to cater to the needs of families and elderly residents.
In 2014, as the state government prepared to demolish Sirius, those residents – some of whom had lived in the building since it first opened – were given notice that they were soon to be evicted. The locals resisted the government’s efforts to repossess their homes, forming the Save Our Sirius Foundation and teaming up with another group of public-housing residents in nearby Millers Point. For a while the letters “SOS” were emblazoned on one of the windows alongside the iconic Jesus message.
But according to Save Our Sirius Foundation chair Shaun Carter, nearly all of Sirius’s residents were relocated to public-housing estates across the city last year. Designed to house up to 200 people, the building is now almost empty.
“The government’s tried to offer them accommodation within a reasonable distance, but it’s difficult to find housing that meets their specific needs. There are still six units occupied – those residents have refused to be moved on,” Carter says.
Carter first got involved with the Save Our Sirius Foundation in his professional capacity as the president of the NSW chapter of the Australian Institute of Architecture. But for him, the fight to save Sirius has a personal side, too.
“As a young child going over the Harbour Bridge, I used to look at that building every day, and it’s probably the sole reason I became an architect. It let me imagine that I could build things that made people’s lives better,” Carter says.
It was built during Sydney’s love affair with Brutalist architecture, a style that emphasises utility, accessibility and ethical design over aesthetics. Besides the UTS Tower in Ultimo, Sirius is arguably the most recognisable example of Brutalism in Sydney.
It’s this architectural rarity that led the Heritage Council of NSW, an advisory body to the state Department of the Environment, to unanimously recommend in February that Sirius be heritage listed. Last week, Heritage Council chair Stephen Davies told the Sydney Morning Herald the decision to demolish Sirius is “disappointing”, because the building’s “aesthetic significance” warranted preservation.
That partly explains why it’s not only Australians who are sad Sirius is headed for the chop. SOSBrutalism, a campaign run by Germany’s Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM), which is devoted to preserving Brutalist architecture, said in a statement that it is, “very sorry to hear that the fight to save Sirius seems to have come to an end”.
Sirius will probably be replaced by up to 250 luxury apartments – a similar scenario to what’s happened in Millers Point. There, hundreds of public-housing terraces have been sold off by the state government over the past few years. Now the median house price sits at a whopping $2,470,550. Coincidentally, the suburb was named “Sydney’s newest haven of liveability” by Domain earlier this week.
Sirius and the Millers Point terraces were some of the last affordable-housing options in innermost Sydney, and while the remaining residents are determined to fight on, the likelihood of their being allowed to stay in their homes is low. In an age of rapid gentrification, increasingly unaffordable housing and rising inequality, the right of low-income people to live in their own city is more precarious than ever. When people travelling over the bridge are greeted by some bland, glass-and-steel luxury apartment complex in a few years time, those who dislike the building might wish for those ugly, old Lego blocks back.

RESOURCED: https://www.broadsheet.com.au/sydney/city-file/article/sirius-building 

You shall not covet your neighbour's house

You shall not covet your neighbour's house 

Wednesday, October 7, 2015 http://tunswblog.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/millers-point-and-rocks.html  

On March 19th 2014 the O'Farrell Government announced the proposed sale of 293 public housing properties in Millers Point and the Rocks. Now, just over 18 months later, Dr Robert Mowbray provides a sobering look at the impact on this unique inner-suburban community, and its resident tenants...

You shall not covet your neighbour's house(Exodus 20:17) - Millers Point 18 months down the track

 

Just over 18 months ago the Hon. Prue Goward MP, then Minister for Family and Community Services, announced the sale of all public housing in Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks, including the Sirius Building. The stated reason for the sale was the high cost of maintenance, significant investment required to improve existing properties to an acceptable standard and the high potential sale values of property assets on the Sydney Harbour foreshore, with the proceeds to be reinvested into the social housing system across NSW.

Previous articles on this blog (check them here and here) and on the ‘Friends of Millers Point’ website (check it here) have debunked some of the myths used to justify the sale of properties in Millers Point. The second of these articles makes the point that there's no plan for the sustainability of the social housing system generally: no asset portfolio strategy, no estates strategy, despite the recommendation by the Auditor-General.

There were 293 properties marked for sale in Millers Point. This affected 600 people and 409

tenancies. Many of the tenants were over the age of 65 and relied upon neighbours, as well as

hospitals, doctors, public transport and other support services close to the city. Many of the tenants have lived all their lives in the area and have strong community connections. Indeed, Housing NSW’s own publication Millers Point Oral History Project: Summary Report reported on page 6: 

Millers Point … has a very integrated community who love living there and have a sense of belonging and allegiance to the place. … The residents have a rich reservoir of memories of living at the Point, going, in some cases, as far back as six generations. They were born, worked, lived and died in the houses at Millers Point. They also have a strong sense of history and heritage. It’s a community within a community where everyone knew each other through work and place of living [my emphasis].

The NSW Government’s own consultant, Cred Community Planning noted that:… 55 per cent of Millers Point tenants have lived in the area for over 10 years, and that 12 households have lived in the suburb for at least five generations. For many residents, the state government’s plan to sell their homes is not only an attack on the basis of their livelihoods but an attack on their emotional and historical links to the suburb. Cred recommended that some of the funds from the sale of homes in and around Millers Point be used to build new social housing properties nearby, especially for elderly residents, adding that they may experience “ongoing negative impacts of stress and poor health outcomes”. ... The state government dismissed this recommendation, and said that they want elderly residents to “build connections in their new communities” [my emphasis again].

You can read about this here. You may also wish to check out the excellent presentation on Millers Point by The Sydney Morning Herald, available here.

The NSW Government gave itself two years to empty the suburb of its public housing tenants and complete the sale of its properties. Well, these properties now are highly sought after real estate.

Just in the last month three properties facing Barangaroo Headland Park reached between $2.46 million and $3.30 million at auction. You can check these sales here. Prior to these auctions, News Corporation reported that the NSW Government has generated $64 million in revenue from the sale of 29 properties.

Millionaire realtor and TV personality, John McGrath, has anointed The Rocks (read ‘Millers Point’) as one of ‘must-have addresses’ in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane. He is quoted as saying: As a shift in the housing stock moves from Government owned to private dwelling there is bound to be a massive upgrade to these beautiful harbourside Georgian and Victorian homes. Plus a significant change in local amenity that usually follows such upgrades. With the recently opened Barangaroo Point park, a 5 minute walk to the CBD & Barangaroo commercial precinct, this is fast becoming one of the most fashionable addresses in Sydney.

Previously, John McGrath was reported as saying that he is a great believer that money, like many things, can be used for good or bad. Well, is it good or bad to covet the houses of others? Likewise, from last year, check out Issue 2, 2014 of Lifestyle Guide which targets Sydney’s most affluent residents. It reads: What to buy ... My tip for the most popular and affordable entry into The Rocks is the Sirius Apartment development. ... The 79 apartments have a retro feel and require minimal refurbishment.

In contrast, the terraces and freestanding homes will need a much more extensive renovation and could take up to four years of love, sweat and tears to renovate. It is a lengthy investment of both time and money but in the end, you will own an important part of Sydney’s history in one of the best locations in Australia. Priceless.

 In mid-July of this year the Heritage Council of New South Wales called for submissions in regards to the listing of the Sirius Building on the State Heritage Register (you can view the Tenants’ Union’s submission here). The action by the Heritage Council has revealed a rift between government agencies, as reported in the Daily Telegraph:

 

FACS wants to sell the building to raise money for more social housing, just as it has with several other Millers Point public housing properties, and said it was preparing its own submission to the Heritage Council. An Office of Environment and Heritage spokeswoman said: “Listing on the State Heritage Register does not prevent the sale or transfer of a property."

Ponder ... the real agenda at Millers Point is to free up housing stock around Barangaroo for

gentrification and to create a Paris Quarter ... a touch of Montmartre. Of course, this must be seen in the context of the development of the casino being built on the same site.

So, what has happened to the residents?

By mid-September 2015 approximately 95 to 96 properties remained tenanted, with 130 to 135 residents still holding on. Most of the others have moved voluntarily, but for many the move was under duress. Shelter NSW’s newsletter Around The House (No. 101) documents some of these in the article 'When older people are forced to move' (see from page 18):

Once upon a time the inner-city areas were seen as slums and we aspired to live in the suburbs.

Now this is reversed; and former inner-city areas are being transformed into exclusive enclaves of wealth and opportunity. In a search for new funds for public housing, the State Government is cashing in on this gentrification in an attempt to generate dollars. All public housing tenants in The Rocks, Millers Point and Dawes Point at the northern eastern edge of Sydney’s CBD have been told they must leave.

The government’s excuse is that these properties are too valuable to retain for public housing and too expensive to repair.

As a consequence, Myra faces eviction. She is 88 years old and blind and has lived in the Millers Point community since 1959. Through her own determination and with the support of those around her, she is able to lead an active and independent life. Myra is a volunteer church and community worker and an inspiration to the people who know her. The State Government wants to ‘relocate’ Myra away from the only place she knows. If Myra is forced to leave, she will lose her independence.

Richard is a single chap in his 80s. Recently he signed papers to move to Newtown because his greatest fear was that they’d dump him in Campbelltown. He’s been in Millers Point for over 60 years and worked in the bond stores. Richard moves slowly now and has to stop regularly for breath. But others in Millers Point keep an eye on him. He tells people that if I fall over in the street at Newtown, they’ll step over me because no-one knows me … or rob me. I know if I fall over in the street here, my friends and neighbours will look after me.

Just one week after telling this story, Richard fell over in Kent Street. Locals rushed to his assistance and he was carted off to hospital where friends and neighbours visited him. The pressure and worry has become too much for Richard and he moved just a few weeks ago.

Over recent months, social media has run stories about Myra … and also Mary Vo, Flo and other older residents of Millers Point facing eviction. Read all their stories here. On the ABC’s Open Drum the uniqueness of Millers Point is penned very poignantly by the daughter of another resident.

One local resident is documenting the impact of forced relocation on the tenants. She writes:

“Amidst Housing NSW’s glossy brochures and promises of better opportunities in a new home, Millers Point residents have heard many stories that tell a different tale about what being relocated is really like. Some were initially positive about moving, and for others the idea was palatable as they were hoping for a house without steps or somewhere bigger, to be closer to family or with a yard for their dog.

“But even for these people, it seems, forced eviction has been a very negative experience. The new house often has problems, apparent only after moving in; and some have been surprised at what it means to be in a place where no one knows your name. For those for whom Millers Point was very important for their well-being it seems that it has been at best traumatic, sad and a massive change, resulting in unexpected new stresses and loss. At worst it has resulted in tragedy.”

She goes on: “We have seen a dramatic spike in hospitalisations, serious injury and illness and, indeed, the process is killing people as predicted. Within weeks of the announcement an elderly neighbour who was somewhat reclusive but functioning well, having lived with her son in Millers Point for over 30 years, took her life. A woman who had been battling cancer for some time and living in a house with mould that Housing NSW never remedied was moved out of her home on the Wednesday, went to hospital on the Friday and died on the Monday. We have lost at least three others ...”

A film by Blue Lucine and produced by Helen Barrow and Tom Zubrycki entitled 'Millers Point: Community or Commodity?' was released at Parliament House on Thursday, 19 March 2015 anddocuments the struggle of the residents. You may view a clip here.

The Millers Point Public Housing Working Party (check here and here) has been waging a valiantcampaign to save some of the housing stock for the older and long term residents. The Working Party have the support of Alex Greenwich who is their local Independent MP, many in the Australian Labor Party and The Greens, but, also very importantly, Reverend Fred Nile, leader of the Christian Democratic Party and a key member of the current NSW Legislative Council.

The Working Party organised a report by SGS Economic Planning which provides an alternative way forward and submitted this to the NSW Government. They are asking, at the very least, that the workers’ flats be retained as public housing. They are also supported by the Friends of Millers Point group. Amongst its patrons are the likes of Jack Mundey, Eva Cox and Anthony Albanese.

Inner Sydney Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service, auspiced by Redfern Legal Centre, with thesupport of City of Sydney, has been running a service for tenants affected by the relocation. Since the service began in May 2014, advocates have assisted over 160 tenants, providing advice about their rights, attending interviews and inspections with FACS Housing, and helping to prepare correspondence and appeals. Read more about this here.

Following the NSW State Elections on 28 March of this year, residents had some hope that things would change, because a new Minister for Social Housing, the Hon. Brad Hazzard MP, was talking to the residents. Previous Ministers had declined to take up the invitation. However, negotiations are moving very slowly and the FACS Housing Relocation Team is still going 'full steam ahead' in asking the remaining tenants to move out. In the meanwhile, Minister Hazzard is reported as saying that he supports a mix of social and affordable housing in developments of public land involving private developers. Only time will tell if he believes that this should apply in Millers Point.

The sale of properties in Millers Point and The Rocks remains an important topic of discussion in the NSW Parliament. In May of this year Alex Greenwich, Member for Sydney, submitted a series of questions to Minister Hazzard about the welfare of tenants being relocated. You can read Mr Greenwich's questions, as well as the brief responses the Minister provided, here. And on the last day of August of this year, as part of the Budget Estimates process, the Legislative Council’s Standing Committee No. 1, submitted 22 questions to Minister Hazzard.

While his answers were far from comprehensive - referring, for instance, to the soon-to-be-published 2014-15 FACS Annual Reports - he did report that 99 new housing units funded through the sale of properties are underway in suburbs outside of the City of Sydney. He also clarified that no funds from the sale of properties at Millers Point have been ploughed back into the City of Sydney local government area, or the nearby inner-western suburbs of Sydney.

But, overall, the 2015 Budget Estimates process has done little to assure tenants and other interested parties that the NSW Government welcomes scrutiny over its sale of public housing in Millers Point and The Rocks.

Back to our text from Exodus 20:17. A great injustice will have been perpetuated if the remaining residents of Millers Point, many of whom are elderly, are required to leave their homes and Millers Point becomes an enclave of the wealthy. The NSW Government mus t pull back from enticing others to covet their neighbour's house.

http://www.greenbans.net.au/images/allMedia/actions/YouShallNotCovetYourNeighbour.pdf