What will Sydney look like in 2050?

What will Australia's largest city look like by the middle of the century? Bates Smart created a vision of the city that may turn out to be quite accurate.Information from Bates SmartBates Smart was one of three of Sydney’s leading design firms invited by the Urban Taskforce to create a vision for Sydney in 2050 which challenges the current height limits.Lead by Philip Vivian the Bates Smart vision for the sustainable future growth of Sydney links sustainability, transport and economic development. ‘For Sydney to sustainably increase density it needs a fully integrated transport system. Our proposal is for future supertall development in the city to fund a sustainable transport system' says Philip Vivian.Our vision for Sydney in 2050 is based on balancing sustainability and economic development. For Sydney to sustainably increase density there needs to be a fully integrated transport system in place. Bates Smart’s proposed vision is for future supertall development in the city to fund such a sustainable transport system.

A new Metro system is proposed that services the inner ring suburbs of Sydney, while the existing heavy rail network will service outer ring suburbs would run express through the inner ring to the city centre. To directly link supertall development to a sustainable transport network, supertall buildings are allowed within 200m of a Metro station in the city centre.

The economic uplift of additional floor space for a supertall developments is directly linked to the provision of sustainable transport, through the purchase of supertall floor space area from the State Government.

These principles have been quantified in a parametric model to create a future vision of Sydney. The concept allows for significant additional floor space. Using the current value of Heritage Floor Space as a benchmark, and compounding its value over 35 years, Bates Smart estimates this realises $7.1B to fund a sustainable transport network.Read more here

Story by: Trends