b'North Sydney - Intensifying Its Role in Global SydneyThe MUDD25 North Sydney Studio undertook a strategic review of the commercial core of North Sydney in response to the controversial over-Metro development pushed through by the NSW Government, the major value capture scheme of the Chatswood-Central section of the Sydney Metro scheduled for completion in 2024. This air rights development on resumed and cleared sites at Victoria Cross above the new Metro Station has been contested by the North Sydney community for its lack of community and cultural facilities, conspicuously Michael Gheorghiu missing from the 40-storey commercial complex approved for the site. The missed opportunity to create a meaningful public square has also been a major concern in the North Sydney community, particularly given the loss of the much-loved privately owned public space of the 1980s Tower Square project, a low-rise Mediterranean-style shopping plaza demolished for the Metro station excavation (Dawkins 2019).Instead of a commercial complex, reinforcing the single-use commercial character of the North Sydney CBD, the MUDD25 Studio proposed to re-position the over Metro developmentand the Metro itselfas a catalyst for change by exploring the full potential of urban intensity as a measure of compactness, density, diversity and connectivity (Guan & Rowe 2016, p.22).Despite the obvious significance of North Sydney as an employment centre second only to Central Sydney in the metropolitan structure of Sydney, it took many decades for its role to be clearly acknowledged and in critical ways, this CBD is still to realise its full potential as a place of diversity and vitality. The County of Cumberland Planning Scheme of 1948 identified North Sydney as an Industrial Area and partly a Living Area. The 1968 Sydney Region Outline Plan removed the industrial zoning but failed to single out North Sydney as a significant city centre. Sydney Into Its Third Ctentury, published by the Department of Planning in 1988 sought to change the structure of the city by promoting urban consolidation and concentrating employment in major centres. In the review of these centres, however, North Sydney was barely mentioned (NSW Department of Planning 1988, p.17). The metropolitan plans of the 1990s, Cities for the 21st Century released in 1995 and Shaping Our Cities released in 1998 made no special mention of North Sydney at all. 39P3-20200301-SYDNEY STUDIO.indd 4 2020/3/8 11:21:41'