Just discovered Darlinghurst Nights is listed as one of the Top 10 Australian Architecture and Urbanism Blogs.

Wow. I was shocked when I picked up the link back to our page.

What about Dan Hill’s City of Sound (check out the awesome new article on electric cars and noise), Marcus Trimble’s Super Colossal, Butterpaper?

Turns out they’re all in there. It was compiled by Marcus, who lives in the area – thanks! And welcome if you’ve just followed Marcus’s link.

Find out more about our blog/get in touch here.

I walk past a building on the corner of Craigend Street and Kirketon Road in Darlinghurst most days. It has an intricate facade, and a seemingly perfect location overlooking Kings Cross and the city.

Yet it’s played host to a string of bars and restaurants, including the lamented Global Burgers. You might see a shadow of old vomit too.

Haunted, cursed, bad feng shui?

In the buzz following Clover Moore’s liquor licensing changes, a DA went through to open ‘Lotus Wine Bar’ downstairs. Seems like such a cool location. It was going to be a seven day a week, 11am to 3am place. But less than two months later, in August, the $75,000 proposal was withdrawn.

Background 10/12/08

Prompted by Scot’s comment below, I checked out the background for Dale Jones-Evans’s intriguing (and, in 2004, award winning) building. It’s all here.

As the architect and developer I imagined a precious, gritty little building exploding out of this tiny, Tokyo-like, 7 x 15 metre, forgotten site. A commercial redevelopment appeared more suitable to the intense nodal semiology of the Kings Cross circus, William Street Boulevard, the corner condition; the urbanity of traffic-tunnel-signage and the general prevalence of human lunacy.

I think the Emily Kame Kngwarreye work’s gone though. Anyone know when/where?

Looking across roofs in Darlinghurst you see a lot of concrete. That’s kinda cool, especially walking through the Bladerunner-esque train underpass in Woolloomoolloo. But can you imagine turning some of the roofs green, with grass, small plants and trees, as well as solar panels and other ‘green’ technology?

It’s not as far fetched as you might think. Right now there are no more than a handful of these ‘green roofs’ around the city, but last year the council granted $48,000 to a group of Sydney-based architects, landscape architects and others to investigate what could be done to encourage more. It was widely reported at the time. But nothing since, despite the group reporting to council five months ago.

One of the authors, Tone Wheeler, says between 60 and 65 per cent of all buildings in the Sydney CBD could have some form of green roof, and that simple planning changes could be used to encourage their development.

A minor amendment to the planning laws can encourage better buildings. This could be done by giving [building] owners more ground space or an extra floor in the building, which can be offset by the whole of the roof being accessible to grow plants or food.

But at the council meeting on November 3, the Mayor, Clover Moore, described the Green Roofs Manual as “being developed”.

At the same meeting, they approved Wheeler’s development application for the Wayside Chapel on Hughes Street in Potts Point – featuring a green roof terrace.