VIDEO: The new Sydney Fish Market opened on Monday morning at 5am, heralding what’s hoped to be a Danish-designed icon to rival that other major tourist attraction, the Sydney Opera House.
But while tens of thousands of patrons flooded Pyrmont to see the new home for seafood lovers, The Fifth Estate headed in the opposite direction, to Surry Hills to interview Lasse Lind, partner at lead architects 3XN/GXN and Karolina Bäckman Faulkner, who is setting up a Sydney arm for its sustainability arm GXN in Sydney. (BVN was executive architect on the Fish Market).
The conversation was wide ranging, delving into some of the details of the building design to the broad challenges of an architectural studio that prides itself in setting the agenda in sustainability.
Back at Pyrmont, the sun continued to glitter on the stunning roof, with its fish scale inspired look, designed to let light to penetrate deep into its vast floor plates of about 20,000 square metres each, in a total floor area of about 65,000 sq m – scaled back from the original brief that was significantly larger after “interrogation of the space needed for this entirely new typology”.
The roof captures rainwater and together with recycled water will supply about half of the needs of the facility. Solar panels on the roof will do their best, but producing just 5 per cent of the total energy required by the intensive refrigeration to keep the produce cooled.
Meanwhile, The Fifth Estate awaits quieter times to sample if the seafood can taste any better in its new surroundings.
Watch our interview here
The Sydney Fish Market team and collaborators
Innovation Consultant: GXN
Executive Architect: BVN
Landscape Architect: Aspect Studios
Public Art Consultant: WallnerWeiss
Structural: Mott Macdonald, WSP
Transportation engineer (nSFM): PTC
Transportation engineer (site surrounds): Arup
Vertical transportation: Aecom
Façade: Apex, PRISM
Logistics: S2D
Sustainability: Stantech, EMF Griffiths
Ergonomic: Dohrmann Consulting
Wind: Windtech
Acoustics/Vibration: SLR
ESD consultant: Wood & Grieve
Flooding: Cardno
Heritage and archaeology: CityPlan / Comber
Maritime navigation: Royal Haskoning DHV
Visualisations: Mir, Doug & Wolf, Aesthetica Studio, 3XN
Urban masterplanners: FJMT
Planning consultant: BBC
BCA consultant: Steve Watson Partners/Group DLA
Biodiversity: EcoLogical
Visual impacts: UGDC / Clouston
General contractor: Multiplex