Open Field Agency
2017 - circa 2027...
Artist and community led city making.
From high level concepts for Public Domain of the Dank Street South Precinct to delivering durational public art as a form of living maintenance.
Open Field Agency vision for Dank Street South Precinct 2020 (C) MAPA
In late 2016 we were commissioned by the City of Sydney to creatively engage with community surrrounding the Dank Street South Precinct so that their stories, values and ideas could help shape the future public spaces to be developed. While in typical development processes, this kind of community engagement happens towards the end of the design process, here the City was trialling a new approach, artist and community led process prior to any official masterplan.
Read > Tending to the open field. The art of maintaining publicness. Architecture Bulletin.
Getting started we asked... Who decides how public space is made? Who is ‘the public' it is made for? Could the many different publics who are connected to a place come together and share in its making?
The Danks Street South precinct is an area of Waterloo bordered by Danks, Young, McEvoy and Bourke Streets. The site is most easily identified by the large concrete open field surrounding the Sydney Water Pumping Station and Valve House still in operation in the south-eastern corner of the precinct. In addition to this many existing commercial and industrial buildings are still in use at the precinct’s northern end.
Like a lot of places in the area, this place about to change. A lot of new buildings will be built, mostly this will be private space, places where people will live or work: houses, shops and offices. But for the first time in generations, part of this site will be open to everyone. A place that is not for sale or for rent. A place anyone can go. A public place.
Bringing together the voices of local residents, community organisations, traditional owners, businesses, property developers, land owners, local government, planners, architects and artists, demanded a deep immersion in the politics of public space. Out of which we hope a new public space will emerge which is inclusive, useful, beautiful and unique.
What have we done so far?
As the first step in creating a vision for the public spaces of this site, we spoke with the community surrounding the Danks Street South Precinct so that local peoples’ stories, values and ideas could help shape the future public spaces to be developed.
We conducted an open research week based at Artbank on Young street in Waterloo. We met with 64 individuals by appointment and drop in. The majority of these meetings took place at Artbank or on the footpath by the site, with the remainder at Ron Williams Centre, NCIE, Redfern Community Centre, Yui Ming Temple and cafes in Redfern to Zetland.
The people we spoke to were generous with their memories, insights, ideas and recommendations for the site. We were given a wealth of ideas, reflections and suggestions. As clear as the diversity of desires and perspectives was the fact that we had barely scratched the surface.
As such we believe it would be a huge mistake to simply take what we have found and attempt to turn it into some kind of frozen-in-time representation of this place and its people.
So rather than presenting a catalogue of desires from which we pick and choose we present our findings as a set of fundamental desires, those which cut across the conflicts and locate a common base from which to build a set of concepts.
This film by Nathaniel Kelly captures snippets of conversations we had with people who live, work, love and know this place.
Our report builds on these encounters to develop the fundamental principles of ‘openness’ that must be preserved in the development and eventual occupation of this important area in genuine partnership between local people, community groups, developers, land owners and council. We take these not as ‘options’ but as mandatory guiding principles, and measures against the concepts and eventual physical results will be judged.
Have a look at the report here:
Site investigations.
For the first time in a century, we worked together with Sydney Water to offer free public tours of the site.
Aerial photographs of the site from 1930 - 2018 illustrating how the site has changed over time.
Concept designs.
In 2020 and 2021 we worked with Jane Irwin Landscape Architects and Bangawarra to develop the concept designs of the public domain. We propose that this initial research be the basis for formulating an ongoing strategy for the development in this place. Our involvement is to help bring the communities’ aspirations into the process for the future public space, so we are guided by what we learned during this initial phase and remain open to further conversations and input.
We want this place to reflect the existing character of the local area and its people, acknowledge and celebrate local Aboriginal perspectives, and become a welcoming place to live and work for all. We have developed a range of strategies to initiate engagement with this site prior, during and post development.
5 separate landowners and industrial strata units privately own land in this precinct. We are now working with the City to ensure that when future development takes place, well-designed and quality open spaces are available, as well as an ongoing public art program and to embed pockets of rewilded landscapes.
In late 2020 the City of Sydney sought community feedback on the concept designs for the Dank Street South Precinct public domain plan through the participatory social pin point platform.
We are currently working on creating the Open Field Agency Residency infrastructure and program. Dasco and UAP developing the work Making the Invisible Visible experimenting how public art can be reframed as a form of living maintenance.
Workshop at ArtBank 2024 - Photos by Joshua Morris.
Concept sketches for Making the Invisible Visible and example of temporary site activation through Open Field Agency Residencies. MAPA
Thank you
We would like to extend our deep thanks to all the individuals who took the time to meet with us and share their knowledge, stories, ideas and understanding of this place and for whom it is special and important place.
We would also like to thank the following organisations who helped us to make connections with these people.
Artbank
Counterpoint Connect
City West Housing
DAHUA
Friendship Bridge
Future Method
Kepos St Community Centre
NCIE
Redfern Community Centre
We Live Here
WEAVE
Wyanga Elders
Yui Ming Temple
We acknowledge the Gadi people of the Eora nation as the traditional owner of the land and that sovereignty was never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present, as well as to those of other indigenous nations who continue to live in and look after this place.
