Barangaroo South Masterplan by RSHP and Lendlease Completes a 15-Year Transformation of Sydney’s Western Waterfront

RSHP has announced the completion of the Barangaroo South Masterplan in Sydney, marking the realization of a 15-year redevelopment that has reconnected the city's north-western harbour edge to its urban core. Once a disused container port, the 22-hectare site has been transformed into a mixed-use, carbon-neutral precinct, integrating commercial, residential, and public spaces along the waterfront. Developed in collaboration with Lendlease following an international design competition, the masterplan is organized into three zones: Barangaroo South, a high-density extension of the Central Business District; Barangaroo Reserve, a reconstructed natural headland that reintroduces native landscapes to the harbour; and Barangaroo Central, a low-density residential area linking the northern and southern ends of the development.

In early 2023, LUXELAKES planned to launch a new project in Wuhan. Having collaborated on multiple previous projects—such as Dotsss Children's Museum, Edenland Architectural, and CPI Planning in Chengdu, as well as The CAPE Commercial District and Qilou Historic Street Planning in Hainan—we were already familiar with each other and worked together seamlessly. As a result, we collaborated again to design a restaurant within a children's playground. During the preliminary planning phase, the restaurant was named "The Brave Cabin," as it was surrounded by challenging recreational climbing equipment. We hoped the building would inspire children's courage to overcome difficulties. With an indoor area of less than 200 square meters, the building has a relatively small footprint. Our goal was to create ample semi-outdoor spaces where visitors could relax in the shade. Additionally, thanks to its prominent location at the island's gateway, the building is visible from a distance to arriving visitors.

With just a few days left before the six-and-a-half-month 19th Venice Architecture Biennale comes to an end, it is possible to look back on some of the most notable contributions within its thematic framework. Marked by the largest call for participants to date, the Biennale's diversity of topics and the range of installations on display go beyond easy recapitulation. As part of that reflection, several initiatives can be highlighted as illustrative of the principles reflected in the curatorial theme, "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective." The concepts interwoven in Carlo Ratti's title form a call to address the urgent need for substantial solutions amid the accelerating climate crisis, positioning the Biennale as a platform for diverse design proposals and experiments organized around three forms of intelligence: natural, artificial, and collective. Beyond the national pavilions and numerous collateral events held throughout Venice over the past six months, among the more than 700 participants are projects that, through practice, embody four shared intentions: opening conversations about the future, proposing systemic responses to local realities, placing technology at the center of design innovation, and pursuing material research rooted in local sensitivity.

Situated near a sparse forest with intriguing vistas over the suburbs of Nicosia, this house stands in a deliberately ambiguous way: Rather than adopting a conventional residential typology that opens outward to offer uninterrupted views of the surrounding landscape, it rises as an austere, introverted box. Is it a building, a sculpture, or a container? The proposal constitutes an elaboration of the primordial dwelling-box and its reinterpretation in relation to contemporary modes of domestic living.