burwood chinatown | phase one
Started 2017 | Burwood Chinatown | 127 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW
Project Vision, Urban Design, 3D Visualisation Images
Burwood Chinatown was Basalt Studio’s project vision for the revitalisation of the shopping centre, originally known as Murray Arcade.
Within 5000sqm of Trade Space, upgrades took place expanding from 45 tenancies to 85 by end of 2017.
Precinct by precinct, Burwood Chinatown is an excitingly convoluted transformation of underused space into curated shops and venues.
In Burwood’s new Chinatown Dining Precinct, the laneways are the urban pantry, its many restaurants and food vendors the dining room and the streets the living room. The dining precinct celebrates the inner workings of the community, engages with city inhabitants and crafts intimate spaces fostering human connection in one commonplace.
As part of a revitalisation program that Basalt Studio has put together for the dining precinct, the public area at the base of Burwood’s many high density apartments is meant to create a magical commonplace for city inhabitants to relax after work and have a meal before returning to their bedrooms.
We see a shift in cultural and generational scale whereby the familiar functions of the house have been separated into restaurants and living/entertainment rooms in the public domain, shifting to match the typologies of a global city. Residents in high performance global cities are taken outside of their cookie cutter studio apartments to go to restaurants and street food vendors as their dining room.
A key objective was to revitalise overlooked spaces of the city thereby breathing life back into them through memorable experiences around the common language of food. Until recently, the alleyway at Clarendon Place remained underused and inactive. The transformation into a lively hawker’s market has increased foot traffic and serves as a safer thoroughfare for the public.
Media articles
Daily Telegraph: Burwood Set to be Home to Sydney’s Next Big Eat Street
Broadsheet: Burwood is Getting a Massive New Food Precinct
Ellaslist: The Inner West is Getting Two New Foodie Precincts
The Objective
The laneways will become the urban pantry, its many restaurants and food vendors the dining room and the streets the living room. Variety and eclecticism is at the core of Chinatown, with an emphasis on an offer derived straight from a colourful culture of celebration and community. Whether it’s the latest craze from Asia or nostalgic home style cooking, the common language of food bring everyone together.
The design of the space is a connection to Asian culture, creating a sense of discovery through the laneway, with the eclectic mix of finishes, furniture, lighting, recycled and found objects, to showcase the most popular signature dishes of Asia. A culinary feast for the senses, with an abundance of food, cooking theatre, colour, tastes and aromas.
The Place
Architecturally, it is a place heavily rooted in Australian history, being the former site of Murray & Company, a department store in the early 1900’s and prior to that, a part of the suburb core opposite the Post Office in the 1800’s. Bringing the two cultures Australian and Chinese together in harmony, the proposal reimagines the traditional notion of Chinatown for today’s generation, and introduces food as the common language.
The History
Historically, Sydney’s Chinatown has moved from the gold rush days of the 1850’s at The Rocks, through Market St’s QVB to its eventual site at Dixon St at the turn of the nineteenth century. By the end of the artisanal age for the Australian Chinese, Dixon St’s Chinatown began to lose its original role of supporting the locals. Shifting Australian immigration policies in the later part of the twentieth century led to an increase in commercialisation, with Dixon St no longer requiring to serve its inhabitants simply as a place of residence.
Most had moved into suburbia, forming Satellite Chinatowns throughout Sydney usually centred along a commercial strip dominated with grocers stocking product ingredients (sometimes specifically imported), better suited to Asian cuisine.
Burwood’s Chinatown aims to bring back a Chinatown for the locals again. With an increasing residential density in the area and a focus away from the quarter-acre blocks of the Great Australian Dream, the objective is to introduce a different mode of living in the city. Activating previously underused areas, Chinatown creates a journey to suit a day or night experience.
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