Big-hearted optimism: Marsden Park Amenities
ArchitectureAU
Maryam Gusheh | 19 Oct 2020
[Excerpt] In a new suburban community on Sydney’s fringe, a robust yet whimsical structure provides an injection of amenity, quality and participation via well-designed facilities, voids for social gatherings and the joyful use of pattern.
I first visited Marsden Park on a Saturday morning during the early weeks of COVID-19 and social distancing. The newly established suburb in Sydney’s north-west felt still, the front yards unoccupied, curtains drawn, no one meandering about, not even cars. A generously scaled green playing field, soon visible on arrival, offered space, light and air amidst the relatively dense subdivision – but it was utterly bare, without weekend sport, games or playing kids. It was as if the necessary retreat from public life had heightened the sense of newness, the just-finished quality of this young neighbourhood unaltered by use, age or patina. And yet, despite this eerie sense of quiet vacancy, the dynamic, glowing figure of the Marsden Park Amenities, at the entryway to the oval, appeared unreservedly buoyant, waiting for – encouraging – occupation: come in, come in. If works of architecture can invoke a sense of optimism, and for me they certainly can, then this whimsical suburban infrastructure by Chrofi feels utterly big-hearted and infused with a sense of hope and generosity…
