What makes: Sydney?
Our round-up of Sydney’s core ‘sense of place’ ingredients
Sydney is a city that comes drizzled with liveability. One cannot understand the place without understanding its lifestyle – a lifestyle defined by easiness, wellbeing, and the great outdoors. With its endless shoreline and temperate climate, Sydney has the best natural ingredients for delivering the Australian dream.
However, beyond its core assets, there are a number of complicating components to Sydney’s sense of place. First of all, there is a widening wealth disparity here, brought on by the rapidly increasing cost of living, and combined with the crippling impact of pandemic lockdowns. Sydney is an expensive place to be.
Then, there is the continuing and deepening volatility of the climate, which threatens to disrupt the outdoor culture upon which the city is built.
Finally, and importantly, Australia’s heritage as indigenous land is a most critical context, and has left placemakers with the significant challenge of finding middle ground between indigenous respect for Country, and Sydney’s ongoing urbanisation.
This complex landscape has brought focus to the placemakers of Sydney, and their efforts – combined with the cultures and communities that reside here – contribute to three core themes in Sydney’s sense of place.
Experimentalism
In the context of this perfect storm of placemaking challenges, an experimental spirit has grown among those attempting to breathe new life into Sydney’s public spaces.
Temporary road closures have become the norm; more food and drink establishments have licenses to sell alcohol outdoors; public libraries are springing up; public spaces are becoming more playful.
All of these trends are representative of a city exploring new ways to bring people together into public spaces. Not everything will work, but an agile, temporary approach to placemaking will be crucial as Sydney navigates the complicated road ahead.
Consideration
One of the most striking impressions that Sydney leaves on the visitor is the sense that everything here has been well thought through.
From its Opera House – which took 14 years to build, and continues to evolve today – to its funding of public art in everyday street spaces. In Sydney, there is a defining feeling that spaces have been thought about, cared for, and re-considered whenever they fall behind.
Importantly, this applies to the way in which indigenous culture is acknowledged throughout the city. While there is yet some way to go before a completely satisfactory compromise is found, it is clear that developers, councils and placemakers are working conscientiously to ensure indigenous heritage becomes part of the story of place.
Development and placemaking can be delicate in Sydney, and for that reason, there is a culture here for careful consideration.
Activity
It is unmissable: the streets, waterfronts, beaches and neighbourhoods are alive here in Sydney.
Part of this is a product of considered design. New mixed-use and commercial developments are built with activity in mind – many have powerful identities from the get-go, which live up to the real wants and needs of the people who spend time there. Whether it’s Michelin-star restaurants, libraries, coffee shops, or just a well-cared-for green space with public conveniences; regenerated spaces in this city serve the public need well. And they are popular for it.
Beyond design, however, there is an underlying reality that Sydney has a very active population. People here spend their time outdoors – working, playing, exercising, and dining – and it is this culture that brings Sydney to life.
