First Building, Bradfield City Centre

Name: Hassell
Price range: $

Designed with key input from Djinjama, a First Nations cultural research and design agency, the First Building places sustainability at its heart — and restores Indigenous Australian culture as the lifeblood of the land.

Facing the future while honouring the past, the First Building — housing Stage 1 of the Advanced Manufacturing Readiness Facility (AMRF) — is a collaborative space for government, industry and research to incubate innovative manufacturing projects. As the name implies, it’s also the first building designed for the new city of Bradfield and the surrounding area of Aerotropolis, the new urban region set to transform Western Sydney.

This unique workplace features a visitor centre and public viewing spaces designed to showcase the real-time building progress of Australia’s newest sustainable, connected city.

A celebration of the meandering and ephemeral water of the Cumberland Plain, the First Building reinstates the site’s permeability, collecting and filtering the building and the site’s runoff across and through a richly planted landscape of Cumberland Plain plant species and water features.

AN URBAN PAVILION UNIQUE TO PLACE

Designed around the existing paddocks and tree stands but also as an urban pavilion in the future context of the city, the First Building is a human-scale structure that acts as a public space, providing relief from the density of the surrounding urban area.

As the first building for the city of Bradfield, it sets a benchmark for the city to follow based on an ethos of being ‘connected, green and advanced’. It promotes design that is of its place and connected to Country.

In the local Dharug language, the area hosting Aerotropolis is known as Wianamatta, which means ‘Mother Place’. It’s a site of significance for First Nations women, reflected in the building’s open and welcoming architectural expression, a design language centred on ideas of water and fluidity, and the use of warm, soft, natural materials that touch the ground lightly.

Client

Western Parkland City Authority (WPCA)

Location

Dharug Country
Wianamatta, Western Sydney, Australia

Status

Completed

Year

2024

Sustainability Ratings

6-Star Green Star (target)
Living Building Challenge (target)
NABERS Energy rating 5.5-Star (target)

Scale

2,800sqm GFA

Collaborators

Djinjama（Daniele Hromek）

Design team

Liz Westgarth, Jon Hazelwood, Jeff Morgan, Yann Frampton, Michael White, Federico Riches

STRENGTHENING ECOLOGICAL IDENTITY AND FUNCTION

The First Building demonstrates how contemporary urban landscapes can successfully represent, be informed by and champion existing ecology and natural landscape.

It celebrates the Cumberland Plain of Western Sydney by immersing people and their activities within a richly planted, permeable ground plane of locally underused species.

This will play a critical role in re-establishing the site’s ecological identity and set an important precedent for the future development of the Aerotropolis region.

Water and water management are of great significance to this site and its wider context. The First Building adopts a holistic approach to water by capturing and storing rainwater for greywater use and landscape irrigation. Existing water bodies, including the longest freshwater stream in Greater Sydney, will be regenerated to promote biodiversity, slow down runoff, and allow for natural filtration into the ground, which benefits the creek’s health.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY AT THE CORE

According to Djinjama’s Danièle Hromek, our First Nation’s collaborator on the project, designing the First Building represents “a massive opportunity across time and space”. Appropriately, it answers the burning question: what happens when the building outlives its use? Here, we’ve embedded the idea of circular economy.

The building has been conceived as a ‘kit of parts’, its timber structure comprising prefabricated modular components that are mechanically fixed together.

These can be disassembled, expanded, or even relocated, ensuring the First Building’s adaptability and long-term relevance to Bradfield’s evolving needs.

The First Building incorporates Indigenous culture into its outcomes, setting new and durable benchmarks for connection to Country and sustainable design principles. It’s also designed with the circular economy in mind — and can be disassembled or adapted at the end of its life.

Highlights include:

A 50% reduction in embodied carbon is achieved via advanced timber technology above ground, which negates the need for a traditional concrete structure. In the ground, low-carbon concrete is utilised.
Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), low-embodied carbon building materials, including rammed earth, have been selected to connect the building back to the Country.
The building’s prefabricated modular components were transported to the site and mechanically fixed together, reducing construction time and cost substantially.
Fifty per cent of the roof is covered in photovoltaic devices, with portions immersed in rooftop vegetation, which reduces ambient temperatures and increases energy production efficiencies.
The building adopts a holistic approach to the water cycle informed by traditional Indigenous practices in this region. Permeable hard surfaces allow water to naturally filter back into the local creek network, retaining water bodies to promote biodiversity and celebrating water by bringing people closer to it.
Natural ventilation is used 60% of the year in the workplace and public areas. A ‘red light green light’ system notifies users which air system will be in place the following day, enhancing awareness of natural ventilation and changing workplace mentality.

First Building for Bradfield now complete, marking a milestone in Western Sydney’s future

As Bradfield City Centre in Western Sydney, Australia’s first new city in a century, prepares for its future the newly completed First Building offers a glimpse into the city’s ambitions.

Media

The New Buildings Set to Shape the World in 2023

CNN hails Hassell’s AMRF First Building as exemplary amongst the world’s best new architecture.

People

Liz Westgarth

Conversation

Wianamatta rising: charting the future of a Western Sydney waterway

Development of a regional economic centre, Aerotropolis, has brought Western Sydney’s Wianamatta waterway back into focus.

Conversation

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With international borders now open in Australia, what can we expect from the new generation of airports as travel re-emerges?

People

Jeff Morgan

PODCASTS

Designing for Country

Indigenous design practitioners from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand discuss embedding indigenous perspectives in the design process.

Wianamatta (Western Sydney Aerotropolis)

Penn’s Landing Design Competition

Colma Creek, South San Francisco

Darling Harbour Sydney Public Realm

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