The IvanhoeEstate site is located in Macquarie Park near the corner of Epping Road and Herring Road within the Ryde Local Government Area (LGA). The site is approximately 8.2 hectares and will become a benchmark in integrated communities. It will provide over 3000 dwellings with a great mix of market, social and affordable housing. In addition, it will crate a unique vibrancy with active frontages, age care facilities, childcare centres, school, neighbourhood parks, town plazas and a jewel in the crown the Village Green and Community Centre.

To democratise the park for all users, the ambition is to create a place where landscape and building are inseparable. By sleeving the built form into the sloping topography, much of the built form sits under the park.

Over the fullness of time, the buildings are designed in a way to be recessive to the landscape, softened by shade, play, colour and water elements. In this way, the park is extended right to the street and beyond the site.

Pool &Gym:

The built form sits on the lower level on grade with the Village Green park. The pool and gym facilities have a direct relationship to the activity in the park and provide good passive surveillance to these spaces. The building optimises the sites sloping topography to reduce the visible scale, with key facades exposed to the park, providing Northern/Eastern light and direct relationships to C3retail/F&B edges. The rooftop spaces are then utilised as habitable spaces to host community gardens and through site connections.

Community Centre and Social Enterprise cafe:

The Built form is arranged as a single storey linear building along the North/ South through-site link connection between Main St and Neighbourhood St. The social enterprise cafe activates a North facing plaza, while a flexible community space sits underneath a landscaped pergola overlooking the Village Green to the East. At the Southern end, a second community space opens directly onto the community gardens adjacent Neighbourhood St.

Social sustainability
An often overlooked form of sustainability, the project aims to promote wellbeing for all users of the Village green and community building. By creating a range of diverse, equitable, connected and democratic spaces, the architecture supports the capacity of current and future generations to create healthy and livable communities with a good quality of life.

Further, the architecture will support a series of curated social spaces to embed the community into the park. The social enterprise cafe will educate and bring the diverse community together, while the community garden and associated community rooms will encourage outdoor activity and interaction.

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