A Story of Place: Victoria Cross Station in North Sydney
Opening soon, Sydney Metro Victoria Cross Station in North Sydney is a key part of the Sydney Metro City & Southwest project. Sydney Metro’s commitment to putting the customer first shines through this streamlined and efficient system, designed to promote intuitive movement, clear navigation, and easy orientation.
The design concept of Victoria Cross Station is centred around the passenger journey and deeply explores the sense of place unique to North Sydney. The two station entrances are seamlessly integrated into the existing gridded urban layout of North Sydney, specifically centred around Miller Street. The architecture of each entry reinforces this grid, with the northern entry scaled to harmonise with the residential and commercial architectural context of the area’s late 19th and early 20th-century polychromatic masonry.
In stark contrast to this traditional grid pattern, the platform level embraces modernity, emphasising sleek international efficiency, speed, and ease of use. The design environment reflects this shift with curvilinear and streamlined surfaces and forms, embodying the essence of travel in a world-class city.
Between the ground floor entries and platform environments, the spaces blend elements of earth and sky in both geometry and materials. The concourse, ticketing, and servicing areas transition between the gridded and curvilinear architecture, designed to facilitate fast movement, easy passenger throughput, and safety for all.
COX Director, David Holm
Victoria Cross will be a natural extension of North Sydney’s public domain, connecting its streets and lanes with a new east-west through site link in the form of a laneway open to the sky including the completion of the north-south civic boulevard.
The journey from platform to ground and back is mirrored in the material selections. Subtle transitions from more earthen and granular textures below ground to lighter and finer grained palettes at ground level provide a seamless experience for daily commuters. This coupling of forms and materials allows for a subliminal transition often experienced at speed during daily station patronage.
Victoria Cross Station stands as a public legacy architecture that transforms North Sydney, integrating world-class transport and public space through thoughtful design, focused on its sense of place.