live digital journal of city design

27 March 2013 – Sydney Light Rail Light Rail links the hub of Central Station and Sydney's Inner Western Suburbs via Haymarket, Pyrmont, Glebe and Rozelle. It is one of the most desirable transports in Sydney, with huge environmentally benefits.   This kind of the transportation is very popular due to the reasons below. First of all, it has more comfortable ride with high passenger capacity and lower operating cost. Secondly, it almost don not discharge any pollution from the vehicle and has lower noise. Thirdly, a well-designed light rail can add visual value to urban landscape and add positive benefits to property value. Lastly, it may more suitable for the areas where level of demand is between bus and heavy rails. However, it also has some negative effects. It has high capital costs but the route is inflexible. In addition, it can be easily disrupt during construction. In summary, light mail has much more environmental ben...

26 March 2013 – Sydney Monorail The Metro Monorail of Sydney City connects Darling Harbour, Chinatown and the Sydney central business and shopping districts. There are eight stations with the total length of 3.6 kilometres of track, with four trains working every day except Christmas. Although this type of transportation will soon be taking down, it used to contribute this city a lot. First of all, monorail requires minimal both vertical and horizontal space. Secondly, as the length of monorail is smaller than traditional elevated rails, it is more attractive than it. And it only blocks a minimal amount of sky. Thirdly, it is much quieter than other trains as it uses rubber wheels on a concrete track. Fourthly, the speed and safety of monorail is much higher than the traditional ones. Lastly, the cost of build and maintain the monorail is much less than underground metro system. However, it also has some negative effects. The most ...

25 March 2013– Chinatown, Sydney Sydney's Chinatown locates in the southern part of the Sydney central business district between Central Station and Darling Harbour. And it is Australia's largest Chinatown. This is a great place and will give visitor an exciting and rewarding experience. This place contains some of the best Chinese culture and offers some of the best festivals, shops, history, and traditional food. The food in Chinatown is great and extremely feature-rich, after whole day of shopping you can sit down and reset yourself. Furthermore, there are also numbers of markets and shops in Chinatown with numerous goods. If you walk through the streets and look to the sides, you will feel strong Chinese culture breath. You can find shops with brightly coloured traditional kites, or perhaps you would like to purchase some Chinese traditional herbs. In summary, Chinatown is a great place to be and pleasure the visitor a...

20 March 2013 – Hyde Park, Sydney Hyde Park is one of the oldest public park in Australia with area of 16.2-hectare in the CBD of Sydney. It is a chain connects parkland and extends north to the shore of Sydney Harbour. Hyde Park is approximately rectangular in shape, being squared at the southern end and rounded at the northern end. It is surround by Elizabeth Street in the west, by College Street on the east, by St. James Road on the north and Liverpool street on the south. This park is very quiet and popular among office workers who want some fresh air, a quick rest. The central pathway through the park is an impressive, tiled, fig lined road linking the Archibald Fountain and the War Memorial. There are plenty of free entertainments during holiday time.    

19 March 2013 – QVB, Sydney   The QVB (The Queen Victoria Building) was designed by George McRae and completed in 1898. It replaced the original Sydney Markets and was named by Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. It was built during Sydney's severe recession. This building used to have a concert hall, coffee shops, showrooms, warehouses and a wide variety of trades people were accommodated, however with time changes, the concert hall become the city library, offices proliferate and more tenants moved in. This building contains full of classic breath and it is a multifunction building. When you walking through QVB, you will appreciate stained glass windows located on level 1 and 2, centre dome area. In addition, Queen Victoria Bronze Statue locates on the forecourt is worth looking. Shopping in QVB is also a great thing. In QVB, you will authentic Australian products, pearls, fine art and souvenirs. It has the best of Sydney's contemporary ladies and men's fashion, s...

18 March 2013 – Westfield in Sydney City Westfield has been one of the most powerful landmark structures in Sydney CBD, with three complete refurbishment shopping centre together. It offers world’s most exclusive and luxurious brands to consumers. Furthermore, this mall has three facades include Castlereagh Street, Pitt Street, and Market Street will have two levels with shopfronts and remaining upper levels of retail with glazed facade, which give a deep and attracting visual impression for people walking on the street level. In addition, in order to fit the Tower into the 21st century, the interior finishes for floors and ceilings, and reconfiguration of existing voids and open space are refurbishment to better serve and attracting shopper. Furthermore, new system of escalators has also been installed. The systems facade to 85 Castlereagh Street is believed to be the first commercial use in Australia as it has a thermally enhanced curtain wall framing system with high sealing pe...

13 March 2013 –The Rocks precinct, Sydney The Rocks is a historic place that represents the present and the past of one of the most important cities in Australia: Sydney. The Rocks is located in the city center. There are a number of historical buildings such as warehouses, homes of sailors and many more that have been built approximately two centuries ago. Presently, all of these all buildings are state-owned, saving it from demolition and trying to preserve it and protect the suburb´s cultural value. Many of the historical buildings in question are used as modern shops, boutiques, restaurants, nightclubs, galleries and unique stores. When ´The Rocks´ is mentioned to tourists as a unique place to visit, the mental image they make of the place is far from its reality. It can be a splendid surprise when one visits this suburb, as it is a combination of the best of Sydney´s past and present. The location of this place is perfect, while you are walking there you can see “The Sydney O...

12 March 2013 - Centennial Park, Sydney Centennial Park is a large public, urban park that occupies 220 hectares in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. Centennial Park located 4 kilometers south-east away from Sydney CBD, in the Randwick. The Park forms part of the larger Centennial Parklands. The park is not only a 'natural' landscape but also constructed horticultural contains a lot of aesthetic and landscape traditions. It has also been designed in order to better serve people’s health, race, social order and the influence of environment on people (known as environmental determinism or euthenics). The urban values have been increased due to this park. This park is a great place for reading and relaxes in side. During weekend, many parents will bring their family there and enjoy the time contacting natural and play with family members. All of these influences have been marked; Centennial Park today is a large and great place on landmark.  

11 March 2013 - Olympic park, Sydney Sydney Olympic park located 16 kilometers west from Sydney CBD and it includes large sports, cultural and leisure buildings. This place has been reconstruct for 200 Olympics and the facilities nowadays have been continue to use for sport and cultural events. For example, during Easter show, some of the stadium will exhibit and sell food to customers and other tadiums will show kinds of animals, plants and agriculture products. Sydney Olympic Park is served by the Olympic Park railway line and Olympic Park railway station. There are also regular ferry services to the nearby Sydney Olympic Park Ferry Wharf, at the end of Hill Road . In addition, plenty of hotels have been built there to serve people from other cities. Large areas of parkland are inside the park and contribute to increase the air quality and sustainability. In summary, Olympic park is a great place for relax and it contains complete facilities. ...

6 March 2013 – Newtown, Sydney Newtown , a suburb of Sydney's inner west is located approximately four kilometres south-west of the Sydney CBD , straddling the local government areas of the City of Sydney and Marrickville Council. King Street is the main street of Newtown and centre of commercial and entertainment activity. When you walk through this street there are many shops along the side. The main Newtown shopping strip contains North King Street, South King Street, Erskineville and Enmore Roads. Everybody knows King Street, which is the main street of Newtown. And Erskineville which is the central of public transport of Newtown with buses along all the arterial roads, and train stations. Enmore Road is famous for its punk stores which now stand along novelty stores, small bars and organizations which are not for profit. South King Street at the Paris end of Newtown is vintage heaven and a world cuisine buff...

5 March 2013 – Paddington, Sydney Paddington is an inner-city and belong to eastern suburb of Sydney and locate 3 kilometers east of Sydney CBD. This is one of the most historically rich, culturally vibrant and recognizable districts of Sydney. Paddington is famous for kinds of boutique and other fashion stores. In addition, there are also many cafés and restaurants. In the backstreets of Paddington there are many local residents and bars which are popular among tourists. Paddington market is very popular and held every Saturday in the open-air area. There are 250 stalls selling Australian contemporary art, craft and fashion, which are directly sold by the artists and craft makers. This area also has a very famous building called Victoria barracks. The barracks were used for military training in Australia during past time; however, nowadays it is home to Headquarters Land Command and Headquarters Training Command. Paddington is a great place contains traditional Australian culture. ...

4 March 2013 - North Sydney, Sydney North Sydney is commercial district of Sydney, located 3 kilometers away from north of the Sydney CBD. The commercial area of North Sydney includes the one of the largest concentration of office buildings with a large representation from the advertising and information technology industries. This area used to dominate business in Advertising, marketing and printing. Lots of Corporations offices have been built there which include Polltraxx Protection Services, Cisco Systems, Novell, Sun Microsystems, AGL, AAMI, Sophos, Symantec and so on. Compare with other suburbs, this area has limited shopping facilities and almost closed on Sundays. The main shopping building is the Greenwood Plaza, which is connected to North Sydney station. However, North Sydney can directly link to the Sydney CBD by road and rail across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Furthermore, lo...