Designing the Global City: Design Excellence, Competitions and the Remaking of Central Sydney

Description

This text explores how architectural and urban design values have been co-opted by global cities to enhance their economic competitiveness by creating a superior built environment that is not just aesthetically memorable but more productive and sustainable. It focuses on the experience of central Sydney through its policy commitment to ‘design excellence’ and more particularly to mandatory competitive design processes for major private development. Framed within broader contexts that link it to comparable urban policy and design issues in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, it provides a scholarly but accessible volume that provides a balanced and critical overview of a policy that has changed the design culture, development expectations, public realm and skyline of central Sydney, raising issues surrounding the uneven distribution of benefits and costs, professional practice, representative democracy, and implications of globalization. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxii Introduction (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 1-19 Property Development, Governance and Design Excellence (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 21-45 Global Sydney: Economy, Planning and Environment (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 47-80 A Pre-history of Design Excellence in Sydney (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 81-116 The City of Sydney’s Competitive Design Policy: Context, Genesis and Operation (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 117-157 Competitive Projects and Their Design Outcomes (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 159-190 Competitions and Excellence: Three Case Studies (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 191-237 The Benefits and Drawbacks of Mandatory Design Competitions (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 239-267 Design Competitions as Public Policy (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 269-296 Conclusion (Robert Freestone, Gethin Davison, Richard Hu)....Pages 297-311 Back Matter ....Pages 313-353