Kensington Community Centre Park

Full description

BACKGROUND: JMD Design, of which Anton James is a Director, was engaged by Randwick City Council in 2016 to convert the Kensington Bowls Club, which is directly adjacent to 3.5ha Kensington Park, into a Community Centre and recreation hub. JMD led the landscape design component with the aim to return the open space to public use and re-stitch it into its parkland context. The strategic vision of the landscape design constitutes a base to future strengthening of an interconnection between the Kensington Park and the Community Centre as a consolidated precinct with overlapping amenities, complementing each other. The landscape design introduced a carpark within an urban orchard to the south of the adapted building and a new Community Park to the north. The new Park is divided into two zones - the Community Lawn - designed as a passive space to serve the refurbished building and the Community Park. CONTRIBUTION: The project scope accounts for the multifarious demands on Kensington Park by addressing the changing local demographics, sporting and leisure provision, traffic, local parking and access as well as green links that connect the park with other key destinations. The project contributes ideas and methods to maximise pedestrian permeability and legibility through a series of community spaces. What is crucially achieves is the establishment a highly accessible and cohesive landscape for users. SIGNIFICANCE: The project won the Best Urban Project award at the 2017 Randwick City Architecture and Urban Design Awards. Three independent judges were engaged to assess the entries. The Awards are held every two years, and are one of Randwick City's key urban design initiatives which recognise excellence and inspire better building design by promoting community awareness and acknowledging the architects and designers involved in enhancing Randwick City's built environment.