CONTEXT wins the AILA 2023 Award for Cultural Heritage for the South Head Master Plan in collaboration with TKD Architects

The South Head Masterplan for Watsons Bay in the Sydney Harbour National Park, by CONTEXT in partnership with Tanner Kibble Denton Architects has won the 2023 Australian Institute for Landscape Architecture (AILA) NSW Cultural Heritage Award. 

Announced annually, the AILA awards are Australia’s top honours for landscape architecture, recognising the positive impact the profession has on Australian communities through the planning and designing of the built and natural environments. 

 

The Cultural Heritage Award is awarded to a project or strategy that demonstrates the restoration, conservation, enhancement, maintenance, or adaptive reuse of a culturally significant site. 

 

Delivered alongside the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, the masterplan sets out a series of ten recommendations for South Head, a peninsula between Sydney Harbour and the Tasman Sea, and forms the southern edge of the harbour entrance. With high rocky cliffs at the tip falling to small headlands and beaches on the harbour, the area has been a national park since 1977, and now receives an average of half a million visitors each year. Recommendations span upgrades to visitor facilities, walking tracks (including the Sydney Harbour Scenic Walk), interpretation, wayfinding, and public safety – all seeking to enhance the experience for visitors, whilst ensuring the protection and conservation of the precinct’s rich natural, cultural and historic landscape.