Revitalising Central Station into a fully integrated transport hub

The Central Station Metro works project is one of the most significant infrastructure upgrades in the history of Sydney's Central Station. Delivering the detailed design for client Laing O'Rourke had many technical, operational, community and safety challenges to overcome.

One major challenge was keeping the station operational and safe while extensive works were taking place, including during the construction of a new metro box with two new tracks 27 metres beneath active rail platforms.

As the first major upgrade to Central Station in over 100 years, most of the station and its infrastructure was under-documented. Extra detail had to be gathered from Sydney Trains and supplemented with new technologies to generate a digital engineering environment to inform the design and future operations and maintenance.

As lead designers, GHD and Aurecon provided detailed design for the rail, civil, structural and building components of the new and upgraded rail infrastructure. GHD Design led the back of house architectural design and documentation as well as managing coordination and interface with the front of house architects, Woods Bagot and John McAslan + Partners, to successfully integrate with the engineering work. Over 450 people collaborated on the project including GHD teams from all states across Australia, as well as New Zealand, the UK and the Philippines.

Our response was led by the following key principles:

User-centric design: Extensive consultation was undertaken to understand the operations of the station in both day-to-day and emergency situations. This enabled the back-of-house areas to be efficiently designed which in turn provided the customers an uncluttered station environment with more usable and generous spaces with natural light assisting orientation and wayfinding throughout the concourse.

User safety: Our design focused on enhancing passive surveillance and overall public safety through minimising visual obstructions, drawing in natural light and maximising front-of-house space. The design of platform screen doors level with platforms and train floors helps to minimise gaps between platforms and trains and improves CCTV surveillance. The back of house has also been designed for ease of access to equipment for maintenance, inspection and replacement.

Top-down construction: Our novel top-down approach achieved safe and time-efficient construction delivery within the live rail environment to minimise impacts on train services and commuters. Laying the slab down then excavating underneath resulted in shorter disruption to travellers and reduced risks to existing heritage platform structures. The use of precast elements greatly reduced installation time on site and enabled the works to be completed within weekend service closures.

Decarbonising transport: The project received a 6 Star Green Star Design Review rating from the Green Building Council of Australia. Our overall design focused on reducing operational energy consumption through high energy-efficient cooling systems, efficient lighting technology and low consumption lifts and escalators, resulting in a 39% reduction in operational electricity consumption. Innovative environmental modelling and design practices resulted in a 90% reduction in potable water consumption and a 123% reduction in lifecycle environmental impacts.

Digital-first collaboration: Central Station Metro works is one of the first infrastructure projects in Australia, of this complexity and scale, to bring together unique digital models for each of the project’s services, combining 137 disciplines and location-specific models. This improved accuracy of construction documentation and minimised rework on site helped mitigate impacts to the existing heritage building foundations and fostered stakeholder collaboration during design and construction.

The project has transformed Central Station into an asset for Sydney Metro that places people first. Greater accessibility, acoustic and thermal comfort, safety and the intuitive gateway and travel experience have transformed the customer experience.

Through strong collaboration across a huge, multidisciplinary team, we were able to deliver:

• Central Walk: a new underground pedestrian concourse, connecting new and existing platforms. The walk provides improved commuter navigation from the new Chalmers Street entry to the North-South concourse and the new Sydney Metro platforms.
• Northern concourse: The upgraded concourse features a new arched roof over the existing Grand concourse, providing a spacious, light-filled interchange between the main line platforms and the new metro platforms.
• Eastern Station Entrance at Chalmers Street: This new entrance gives commuters direct access from the station’s eastern side, the CBD and south-east light rail to Central Walk.
• New metro box and new canopies to platforms 12-14: Located 27 metres below ground, the new metro box houses two new Sydney Metro platforms beneath existing platforms 13, 14 and 15.
• Escalators: These new escalators are the very first to lead directly to suburban platforms 16-23.