This new offering is a natural extension for the design studio that has designed city shaping buildings, precincts and landscapes since its inception including Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter and Melbourne’s North East Link Project – winner of the prestigious 2022 World Architecture Festival Future Project: Infrastructure award.
The team - led by urban designer Thomas Hale and landscape architect Michael Hawes - has expanded on the back of recent successes, including work with global developer Lendlease on a masterplan for a 3000-dwelling development project in Sydney’s Waterloo precinct. Now with over 18 specialists, the expanding capability and capacity provides clients with a completely integrated design solution inhouse with their leading architecture and Indigenous, sustainability and digital-design consulting services.
“As an Urban Design and Landscape Architecture team, we operate at the intersection of economics, politics, and the natural environment – while that space can be full of tension, it’s a rich environment for design to solve strategic problems. It’s been fantastic to see the market respond so positively to our offer” says Thomas.
The team have been active across Australia and New Zealand on both new and existing projects including the Maritime Museum precinct in Auckland and the heritage redevelopment of the Pyrmont Campus in Sydney for Google. This complex development required a sensitive urban design strategy, stitching together a high-profile water’s edge and reconnecting the area to the bay.
One of the key reasons for this growth, Michael believes, is the pragmatic approach taken by the team. “Whether it’s the district, precinct or site scale, our design logic is backed by a combination of international best practice, commercial acumen and an aspiration to design a brave future. Having worked alongside Australasia’s most successful and progressive developers and development agencies for over a generation, we know what it takes to deliver urban design and landscape outputs that are aspirational, actionable and sustainable.”