b'Sydney created by completion of the Harbour Bridge1) opportunities for infill development within the existing in 1932, once Australias economic recovery from thebuilt form fabric, 2) opportunities for development Great Depression and World War II gathered pace in theaugmenting the many tertiary and secondary educational 1950s. This was marked by construction of the elegant,establishments in the City Centre, 3) opportunities for modernist office building for the Mutual Life Insurancedevelopment within the largely Council-owned Ward Company at Victoria Cross designed by Bates Smart &Street Precinct - a critique of North Sydney Councils McCutcheon in 1957. The most dramatic change cameown proposals for this valuable but off-centre site, and in the early 1970s, when 27 commercial towers were built4) opportunities for development over the Warringah between 1970 and 1972. This boom set in concrete theFreeway to deliver an air-rights development and an single-use CBD, but it also created the opportunity for aassociated urban park, a visionary but controversial transfer of development rights (TDR) mechanism thatconcept. rescued the North Sydney Civic Centre from a poorly-conceived high-rise project. This was a creative moveThe students presented deeply researched and well conceived by community-activist councillors, includingthought out Urban Design Frameworks that revealed the charismatic independent architect-politician, UNSWthe potential for North Sydneys commercial core to be alumnus Ted Mack (1933-2018), later to serve as Mayortransformed through greater urban intensity into a global carrying on the use of TDR projects in the public interestcity sector of long-needed diversity and vitality.through the 1980s and early 1990s (Park 2002). The possibility for a renewed TDR process, learning from 50 years of experience with this mechanism worldwide (Barnett 1974; Nelson & others 2011), informed the major moves proposed in the MUDD25 North Sydney Studio.The survey of the North Sydney commercial core, including a comprehensive audit of the building stock, revealed the constraints and opportunities for regeneration, and when the urban design proposals of the studio groups were developed, strategic elements were tested through feasibility analysis.The studio projects centered on four main themes stimulated by North Sydneys new Metro connection, 41P3-20200301-SYDNEY STUDIO.indd 6 2020/3/5 23:55:55'