Inner Sydney’s best new architecture

Back in January I returned to my home city of Sydney for a month. As the plane crossed the beautiful harbour, I could see dozens of new buildings now gracing the skyline. Here is - in my opinion - the best of inner Sydney’s new architecture.

1. One Central Park

When I was in my early 20s my friends and I would head to a music night on Sydney’s Broadway called Purple Sneakers... No doubt I was annoyed when the bar was to shut to make way for a bunch of new towers.

Turn the clocks forward a decade and all is ok! One Central Park is beautifully designed (by Jean Nouvel), and with a whole load of bars, shops and cafes, it’d be hard to argue that the new area isn’t an awesome addition to the city. Having now won dozens of design and sustainability awards around the world, this is the sort of development that makes Sydney's architecture a talking point around the world.

I was lucky enough to get a tour by friend of mine, and urban planner, John O’Callaghan. Check out the film below.

2. Dr Chau Chak Wing Building

Known for using unusual materials and incorporating a unique sculptural style, Frank Gehry is one of the world’s most celebrated architects.

In the past he’s been criticised for being a ‘Starchitect’ whose showey buildings overwhelm their surroundings.But in my mind, Gehry brings a sense of humanism to cities, which across the world, suffer from lifeless, boring buildings. And Sydney is no exception to this. It only takes looking at the city skyline to see that many of Sydney's existing tall building architecture is unimaginative and unambitious.

Whether you see it as ‘a beautiful paper bag’ or a ‘treehouse’, the new UTS building is a awesome new addition to the Sydney skyline.

Photo by Jason James

3. Paramount House

Through the enhancement of a beautiful 1940s art-deco building, the collaborative work of Woods Bagot architects, Fox Johnston Architects and Right Angle Studio, among others, has proved that Sydney's heritage buildings can be beautifully readapted into innovative and creative spaces for modern-day use.

The recent refurbishment has created a dynamic space for a mix of uses, including a cinema, café and workspaces. I was super impressed with Wood Bagot’s use of traditional joinery and artisan furnishings in its incredible shared office space.

Sydney has a strong record of destroying old buildings, so its awesome to see a project like this, which has seen the art-deco Paramount so nicely brought back to life.

I was originally going to include a section on the city's worst architecture, so that I could have a good old rant about Barangaroo. But for now... I'm keeping it positive!

Any other buildings that should be on this list?

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Introduction to Next-Gen Cities feature series

We live in a new urban era. Not only do more people now live in cities than rural areas, but urban populations in the developing world are expected to more than double from 2.5 billion in 2009 to nearly 5.2 billion in 2050.

Urban populations in the developing world are expected to more than double from 2.5 billion in 2009 to nearly 5.2 billion in 2050

With this tremendous growth, cities are taking on new meaning; they are the centres of cultural diffusion, financial boom and bust, opportunity, prosperity and, as we have recently seen, solidarity.

Arguably, cities have surpassed the nation-state as key economic units and global organising nodes. With this, we have entered a new age of city competition as each fight for world city status, the largest events or the most important businesses. The current urban era is like nothing this planet has ever seen before.

The governance mechanisms and processes that manage our cities have been unable to cope with such change. Traditional ways of thinking about formality, traffic engineering, property development and architecture are quickly being overturned by a new urbanist movement; a movement that places the importance back on the human scale.

We are seeing a movement away from traditional zoning methods, egotistic architecture and car domination. Slowly but surely, we are also seeing the demise of the greedy downtown property developer. Perhaps if anything, the GFC has helped to spur this progress.

With this new wave of thinking, we are seeing a new wave of professionals including planners, architects, engineers, politicians, scholars and activists, who are quickly transforming the cities in which we live. Around the world, progressive thinkers are achieving amazing things. Whether its bridging the rich and poor housing gap, getting cycling on the infrastructure agenda, designing creating youth spaces or chair-bombing a local park, we are seeing rapid urban changes around the world.

This series for the Urban Times will hone in on cities across the globe to speak with the next generation of urban professionals who are particularly innovative in they way that they think. City-by-city, this series will take you on a journey across the globe to find give you an insight into the future of the urban.

I'll keep you up to date on the article numero uno.