Transforming Joynton Avenue Creative Centre
The former nurses quarters at the South Sydney Hospital site are now an inspiring space where people can express themselves and connect.
Project Status: Completed
We’ve reinvigorated and found new uses for the heritage-listed buildings on the site.
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What we’re doing
The award winning precinct, which sits between Joynton Avenue and Portman Street, Zetland includes a creative centre, community shed, childcare centre, park and public artwork. It is a place for locals and visitors to explore their creative side, meet their neighbours and enjoy spending time.
Peter Stutchbury Architecture in association with Design 5 – Architects turned the former Esme Cahill nurses quarters into the Joynton Avenue Creative Centre, an inspiring space where people can express themselves and connect.
The centre has won a swag of awards. It won the highest accolade, the Lachlan Macquarie award for heritage, and a national award for public architecture at the 2018 National Architecture Awards.
The project was the first ever recipient of the newly introduced NSW Architecture Medallion at the 2018 NSW Architecture Awards. It also won the Greenway Prize for heritage and awards in the public architecture and sustainable architecture categories.
It was also one of the winners in the local and neighbourhood scale build projects category at the 2018 Australian Urban Design Awards.
107 Projects, one of Sydney’s best loved arts organisations, curates and manages Joynton Avenue Creative Centre, providing affordable work spaces for small creative businesses. A program of events and workshops complements accessible community facilities. There are a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces available for the community to hire through 107 Projects.
Peter Stutchbury Architecture also reworked the former pathology building which now houses a community shed.
Banga means ‘make’ or ‘do’ in the Sydney Aboriginal language.
The Bower Reuse and Repair Centre has taken over the Banga Community Shed and is running Australia’s first community hub dedicated to the reuse and repair of household electronics. The shed now houses a tool library and hosts a weekly repair café, electronic skills workshops, and a tagging and testing service. It will provide space for people to meet, learn, and share skills.
To get involved, please contact The Bower.
The hospital’s former outpatient building has been reworked by architects Fox Johnston into a colourful and modern 74-place childcare centre.
Heritage features such as roof cowls have been reinterpreted as skylights and offices have become light-filled playrooms.
A wrap-around verandah encourages individual or group play protected by large shade trees.
Passive, active and messy play spaces include an outdoor kitchen and digging patch extending into a lively water and sand play area.
The centre received a commendation in the educational architecture category at the 2018 NSW Architecture Awards.
Waranara means ‘to seek’ in the Sydney Aboriginal language.
We appointed Australia’s largest early learning provider, Goodstart Early Learning, to run the centre which will open in mid-2018.
For enrolment enquiries, please contact Goodstart Early Learning.
This park connects the creative centre and the community shed. It is a green space for friends and family to gather, picnic and play. We worked with Sprout Landscape Architecture in collaboration with CAB Consulting to reinstate native plants from the former Waterloo swamp, including eastern suburbs banksia scrub.
Next to the park is an outdoor recreation space for all ages. Designed by JMD Design, it includes a playground for toddlers with climbing equipment, a basketball court and a table tennis table.
Matron Ruby Grant Park is one of 40 parks that will make Green Square a more liveable and sustainable neighbourhood.
The park won the Civic Landscape Award for Excellence at the 2018 Australian Institute of Landscape Architects NSW Awards.
The precinct features an environmental artwork by Sydney-based, Colombian-born artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso, While I Live I Will Grow.
The artwork, composed of bottle trees and a sandstone spiral, welcomes visitors at the entrance of the site. The tapered shapes of bottle trees suggest a parallel growth with people in the community and respond to themes of water and drought.
The artwork is part of our vision of giving Green Square locals and visitors access to art in public spaces.
The Green Infrastructure Centre, a former hospital administration building, houses Green Square Water, a water recycling facility run by Flow Systems on behalf of the City.
Green Square Water supplies treated stormwater in all Green Square town centre buildings for flushing toilets, laundries, green space irrigation and cooling towers. The water is stored in 2 tanks under Matron Ruby Grant Park.
Solar panels in the precinct produce electricity for the local electricity network. Nearby Gunyama Park Aquatic and Recreation Centre will also supply additional low carbon energy to this network. We will also retrofit a battery to power the precinct’s street lighting.
