Harold Park by JMD design

Harold Park is a 3.8ha park in Forest Lodge, a highly urbanised suburb in the inner city of Sydney. Nestled between two residential zones, Harold Park presented an opportunity to connect the site to its wider open space networks and create a space that is designed for community use that also provides habitats for the local flora and fauna.

JMD design were lead consultant on a multidisciplinary team that prepared the design and documentation for a new 3.8ha park on the former Harold Park Paceway. The new park integrates with the open space network of Johnston’s Creek and the Glebe Peninsula and extends the design work undertaken by JMD design at Jubilee Park, the Crescent and The Glebe Foreshore Walk.

Harold Park provides important recreational, environmental and cultural assets that connect, expand and reinforce the existing open space systems around Johnston’s Creek and the Glebe Peninsula. The design creates a distinctive place, drawing on the existing setting, history, ecological and recreational opportunities afforded by the site.

Bounded by a 16m high sandstone cliff along the eastern edge, a new apartment development along the western edge, and the Tramshed precinct to the north, the new park is a linear space that provides a large informal green, a planted linear swale, a traditional garden combining historical and contemporary ideas, a children’s play space, raingardens, picnic and barbecue facilitites and new small bird habitat.

The park is organised as follows, the western edge provides the main circulation access through the park and contains a linear stormwater swale, at the base of the cliff along the eastern edge a half metre high terrace holds rain gardens, picnic shelters, barbecues, habitat zones and a playground. Adjacent to the raised terrace are informal groupings of trees and informal arrangements of garden furniture. The central portion of the park is occupied the Green. To the north of the Green, the Tramsheds Garden takes up the four-metre level change between the Green and the Tramsheds. The southern narrower portion of the park retains an existing slope and sandstone outcrop, a detention basin, a secondary lawn and an access stair to the streets above the cliff.

A series of pedestrian and bike friendly pathways and bridges connect all aspects of the park and its surroundings. The primary path along the western edge is a 2.5m wide concrete path edged with a wide brick band for urban furniture and fittings. Short bridges connect the park to the adjacent apartment neighbourhood to clearly signal the public nature of the open space and create a clear arrival. Between the primary path and the residential development, a linear stormwater swale runs the length of the park. It is planted with textural mix of grasses, sedges and small shrubs to create a defining edge between the adjacent development and the public domain.