© Martin Mischkulnig
Kengo Kuma completed his first building in Australia: a spiraling six-story structure at the heart of Sydney’s darling square district. The civic center is known as ‘The Darling Exchange’. It features a library with spaces designed to support creative and technology startups, a ground-floor market hall, a childcare center, and a rooftop bar offering views over the neighboring park.
The Darling Exchange Library Technical Information
- Architects: Kengo Kuma & Associates | Kengo Kuma Bibliography & Profile
- Location: Sydney, Australia
- Topics: Wood Architecture, Cultural Buildings, Public Libraries
- Scale: 6 stories
- Building Area: 6,680 m²
- Project Year: 2019
- Photographs: © Kengo Kuma and Associates, © Martin Mischkulnig
Architecture forms a vital link between people and their surroundings. It acts as a gentle buffer between the fragility of human existence and the vast world outside. How different people choose to build connections in their environment essentially defines those societies and their relationships to conditions around them.
– Kengo Kuma
The Darling Exchange Building Photographs
© Martin Mischkulnig
© Martin Mischkulnig
© Martin Mischkulnig
© Martin Mischkulnig
© Martin Mischkulnig
© Martin Mischkulnig
© Martin Mischkulnig
Text by Kengo Kuma Architects
This is a “wooden community center” located in Darling Harbour in the center of Sydney’s downtown district. The objective for this community center was to create a soft and warm, low-rise structure that is integrated with the square, in contrast to the group of high-rise, multi-dwelling buildings in the surrounding area.
Hoods were placed randomly on the inside of the glass screens that can be opened on the ground floor market, blending in with the active street community daily. The wooden spiral-shaped façade was extended into the square to transform it into a pergola that provides shade. The upper floors contain a childcare center, library, restaurants, and other community facilities, and each floor plate was designed to shift the view from each floor and the terraced housing, resulting in a unique perspective.
The wooden screen, comprised of wooden “threads” wrapped around the building in an irregular pattern, gives it a distinctly different expression from the surrounding high-rise buildings. The bent Accoya softwood members are randomly placed so that the panels overlap with each other onsite in a manner that the joints are not visible.
This structure resulted in an interior space that resembles a silkworm cocoon and a primitive façade that resembles a bird’s nest, creating an oasis in the midst of an urban jungle.
The Darling Exchange Gallery
About Kengo Kuma
Kengo Kuma is a Japanese architect and professor in the Department of Architecture (Graduate School of Engineering) at the University of Tokyo. Frequently compared to contemporaries Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima, Kuma is also noted for his prolific writings. He is the designer of the New National Stadium, Tokyo, built for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
- Project Team: Yuki Ikeguchi, Marc Moukarzel, Diego Martin, Mira Yung, Laura Sandoval Illera, Taylor Park
- MEP and Structural Engineers: Lendlease
