THE PONDS PARKLANDS

Blacktown, NSW

This benchmark sustainable development in the Cumberland Plain landscape comprises 3200 residential lots and more than 80 hectares of parkland along Second Ponds Creek. CLOUSTON’s master plan focused on integrating rehabilitation of the creek and bushland in a residential context, with recreation facilities overlooking the ephemeral creek and adjacent bushland.

Increasing functionality and liveability were key to this project, which centres around community inclusion and engagement. Distinctive features include limited but strategic use of amenity lawn areas, a water-quality management system and an art and interpretation program.

The Ponds was described in The Daily Telegraph (5 December 2014) as the “fastest growing suburb in NSW” and the “most successful master-planned project in NSW”, with all plots of land selling out two years ahead of schedule.

Among the 40-odd individual projects CLOUSTON has contributed to this site, a few highlights are:

Ironbark Lake – This five-hectare park is the defining feature of the waterfront community parkland. It provides a continuous lakefront walkway, kick-about spaces, picnic and BBQ facilities, integrated with best practice water management and bushland and riparian corridor restoration.

Public Art – Artworks from three significant Australian artists are featured in and around the Lake. CLOUSTON worked with Jill Chism in siting her glass artwork, Ponds Dreaming, within the northern lakeside park. A centrepiece to the lake itself is The Culture of Water, a seven-metre-high stainless-steel artwork by Bronwyn Berman. Within the woodland areas of the park are benches and seats designed by artist Russell Anderson and fabricated by inmates of Parklea Prison as part of a collaborative works program funded by UrbanGrowth NSW.

The Gathering Playground – This children’s playground combines several “off the shelf” play pieces with customised precast concrete elements in a natural bushland setting. Designed to stimulate imaginative and exploratory play, the space also includes the Gathering, an indigenous art environment comprising a detailed concrete coloured pad and bronze artworks created through collaboration between local Aboriginal artist Edna Watson and project artist Graham Chalcroft.

See Waterways and Foreshores Portfolio and Infrastructure Portfolio for more of The Ponds projects.