The Convenient Detour

The site is undermined by the two Cross City and Eastern Distributor tunnels, where William Street joins them. It offers an opportunity to propose an alternative future and create a monster out of these infrastructures.

Based on the analysis and on its contextual content, a Convenient Detour/drive-thru shopping centre is  proposed as a program in order to resuscitate this historical shopping area which has been partially killed by the Westfield big boxes of retail in the CBD and in Bondi Junction.

The proposal is trying to reinvent the shopping experience, by accepting that cars have won, that William Street will never be a successful retail street again due to: Tall buildings on the North side overcasting the street, large thoroughfare with high traffic of daily drivers just passing through or by, death of the traditional
retail street model, etc.

The proposal is offering a unique and convenient experience. It is the place to go while driving through those tunnels or William street, to drive up, shop and go back on the initial route. It is also an architectural experience for the locals who are lacking on real shopping areas.

This Context-killing building is grabbing the unavoidable reality to challenge Westfield model, take the worse of it, thus make it better as a convenient detour and a vertical street transformation and thus revitalise William Street.