Landscape works

The landscape creates opportunities for the integration of artworks, resulting in a visitor journey where landscape and art are closely intertwined as well as further integrating architecture with landscape. The design also better connects the expanded Art Gallery to the adjacent Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and The Domain, as well as to the city, Sydney Harbour and neighbouring Woolloomooloo.

The planting strategy for the project draws upon endemic ecological communities that give Sydney Harbour its rich character, reinstating historic Australian native species more in keeping with the original flora of the site. The planting design reintroduces coastal sandstone gully, foreshore forest and woodland plantings to the site, increasing biodiversity through a diverse mosaic of canopy and understorey trees, shrubs, and groundcovers.

The Art Gallery is also delighted to have worked closely with the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust to provide extensive landscape enhancement south-east of the existing Art Gallery building to improve the experience and amenity for all visitors and commuters to the precinct.

The Art Garden occupies the area between the existing and new buildings, from Art Gallery Road at the west to the eastern end of the land bridge over the Eastern Distributor. The Art Garden creates a vibrant new civic space for Sydney that provides: 

• A verdant and shaded link between the Art Gallery’s existing and new buildings 

• Improved 24/7 universal pedestrian access between Woolloomooloo, the Domain and the city through the centre of the expanded campus

• Enhanced sightlines to the surrounding parkland, the city and the harbour

• Variegated plantings, still under development, that will provide an inspired landscape presence at the heart of the campus

• A commission by Wiradyuri and Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones who has created an artwork at the heart of the expanded campus that links the new and existing Art Gallery buildings and responds to the site’s history on Gadigal land. Jones’s practice seeks to celebrate Indigenous knowledges and to offer unique perspectives of Country while involving community within the work. The living artwork, bíal gwiyúŋo (the fire is not yet lighted), is scheduled to open in 2024.

• A landscaped ‘rain catcher’ that collects rainwater from the wave-form glass canopy over the Welcome Plaza for water harvesting as part of the 6-star Green Star sustainable design rating

• Multiple spaces for art experiences, art-related programming and other events, including a sculpture terrace along the north-east facade of the existing building

The additional public space created through the removal of car parking bays at the front of the existing building has enabled the formation of a new civic forecourt. Design features include:

• Shallow reflecting pools of highly polished black granite either side to the front entry of the existing building, providing reflection of the portico – whether with or without water

• Reuse of the low stone heritage walls in front of the existing building re-establishing their elegant curves as well as raising them to their original height to provide communal seating

• Additional landscape, seating, shade and visitor amenity

An improved accessible pedestrian entry to and from The Domain from Art Gallery Road opposite the Art Gallery will be completed in 2023.