Revitalising Sydneys Central Station
At a glance
The design team overcame many technical, operational, community and safety challenges to deliver the upgrade to an operational station. Placing customers first was a key priority in all stages of the project journey, from design and construction through to the quality of amenities delivered.
The challenge
Revitalise Australia’s busiest rail interchange at Sydney’s Central Station to create a fully integrated world-class transport hub that puts customers first. With 270,000 daily commuters, the new station needed to improve access, safety and provide connection to city, suburban and regional transport services. At the same time, ensure minimal disruption during construction, and explore decarbonisation strategies for improved environmental outcomes for the next 100 years and beyond.
Our response
The Central Station Main Works project is one of the most significant infrastructure upgrades in the history of Sydney Central Station.
The design team overcame many technical, operational, community and safety challenges to deliver the upgrade to an operational station. Placing customers first was a key priority in all stages of the project journey, from design and construction through to the quality of amenities delivered. Key was keeping the station operational and safe while extensive works were taking place.
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, we provided detailed design for the rail, civil, structural and building components of the new and upgraded rail infrastructure.
Our response included:
Customer centric design
Extensive consultation was undertaken to understand and respond to the customer, employee, operator, contractor and stakeholder needs in both day-to-day operations and emergency modes. The design team maximised and visually connected view lines, and harnessed and diffused sunlight into concourses to assist orientation and wayfinding. The overall design enhances the station’s heritage legacy and is consistent with the historic built form.
Top-down approach
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.
Decarbonising transport
The project represented World Leadership in sustainable building design. Decarbonisation strategies reduce the overall operational energy consumption and enhance thermal and acoustic comfort and air quality, which was achieved through energy efficient cooling systems, solar panels and lighting technology, low consumption lifts and escalators, and the use of natural light to reach passengers underground. Innovative environmental modelling and design practices result in a 90% reduction in portable water consumption and a 123% reduction in Life Cycle Environmental impacts.
Build it first digitally
Central Station Main Works is one of the first infrastructure projects in Australia, of this complexity and scale, to bring together the unique digital models for each of the project’s services.
The impact
The project has transformed Central Station into a sustainable asset for Sydney Metro that places people first and takes pride in a 6 Star Green Star Design Review rating from the Green Building Council of Australia. Greater accessibility, acoustic and thermal comfort, safety and the intuitive gateway and travel experience have transformed the customer experience. Recognising that station users include both local commuters and visitors, Central Station is now a destination, and a positive legacy for future generations.
The novel top-down construction approach led to efficiencies in project implementation in a live rail environment. The challenges to build the design below an existing and busy live station is next level, utilising innovative and unconventional approaches.”