Shipwreck Lookout

2006 RAIA NSW Chapter commendation

The site is a narrow man-made promontory at the shallow southern end of Homebush Bay, where it is possible to see four shipwrecks that remain visible above water, from the days when Homebush Bay was a ‘scuttling’ yard. The project comprises a series of landscape interventions that have enabled the peninsula to be opened to the public. The main viewing area is defined by a crisp brick platform and seat, with rough strewn recycled brick stabilising the edge in the intertidal zone. Big road mirrors mounted onto light poles give views into the hulks close by, whilst the distant shipwrecks are sighted through a telescope – that quintessential apparatus of the ‘scenic lookout’. Playfully suggestive of ship imagery, these looking devices invite interaction. They draw attention to the site as a constructed lookout by mediating between the object and the viewer. The visitor, actually there, is enticed to look at framed reflections of the ‘real’ thing.

Featured in:
Sunburnt: Australian Practices of Landscape Architecture
Architecture Australia vol.95 no.2
Micro Macro City Venice Biennale 2006