Michelle Maliney Steen

Site - Track area between Redfern and Central Station, Sydney, Australia 

Upon observation of the site, a number of problems were noted:

• The volume of motor traffic at the Devonshire Street crossing is relatively low compared to the amount of pedestrians using the crossing. This highlights the need for a more pedestrian focused environment.

• The layout of the park is very open. It lacks a variety of private and public space and designated areas necessary for people to feel comfortable in their environment.

• Many footpaths around the site are interrupted by drive-ways. This creates fragmentation in the flow of pedestrian movement.

• The site has some functional underground connections to sustain the overflow of people. However, this is just a solution to allow people to move directly through the site without taking their experiences into consideration.

• The streets surrounding the site are narrow and lined with tall buildings. This creates congestion on constricted footpaths; it creates overshadowing and wind-tunnels, plus a concentration of traffic noise, none of which encourages people to use the area for pleasure.

From the site observations, it becomes apparent that the areas available to pedestrians are highly fragmented and disorganised, indicating a necessity for more emphasis on pedestrian flow. Pedestrians include adults, children, people with strollers, people who are visually impaired, and large numbers of people alighting from buses moving to the station entrance and the pedestrian crossing, and some people walking with bicycles moving south to reach the entrance of Prince Alfred Park.

The pedestrian flow is both north and south. There is potential to open this flow to east and west over the tracks. This would open up the site and allow it to function better as a public centre. The introduction of a building that generates alternate configurations with emphasis on passenger movement through transitional spaces is vital.