YURONG WATER GARDENS
Sandstone and Water, 15’ x 20’
Cook & Phillip Park
Public Art Commission
Sydney City Council
Sydney, Australiae

The materials which I use in my work are diverse. The most recent piece which I have just completed in Sydney, Australia is a public park where I was commissioned to create a terraced water garden using indigenous sandstone. This Park, called “Cook and Phillip”, was opened to the public in month/year and was part of the citys’ push towards creating innovative sculptural interventions throughout the city for the Olympics in September 2000. My gardens are known as the Yurong Water Gardens.

The choice of material refers to the abundance of sandstone which is visible throughout Sydney’s architectural history. Water draws reference to the original creek, which flowed, exactly at the site over a century ago.
The scale and placement of the rocks have been deliberately designed to relate to the site’s relationship to St. Mary’s Cathedral whose spires and grandeur loom above. The simplicity of the shapes and forms of the sandstone rocks in the Yurong Water Gardens form a dialogue with the ornate detail of St. Mary’s which is visible at the site in a counterpoint of intimacy and grandeur, simplicity and intricacy, old and new which are in the same language of materials.
The use of water is a memory of the water originally at the site as well as reference to the aquatic center which is “all about” water. It is a continum of what begins at the Center to culminate in a garden-like setting. The choice of material refers to the abundance of sandstone which is visible throughout Sydney’s architecture.
I feel that it is in the integration of these visions that the Yurong Water Gardens is innovative. More importantly, its success lies in it having already become a place in Sydney which invites interaction and a sense of ownership from those who visit it.