Maitland Riverlink is exacting work, civically generous and courageous. Beyond the realization of an appropriate form for communal amenity, the design revitalizes and fortifies the communal consciousness.
The project offers the people of Maitland a public place that is both carefully scaled to the grain of its urban context and highly transformational. It is a public living room, an outdoor cinema, an urban stage, a covered plaza, a forecourt to a restaurant and cafe, a gallery for urban art and a threshold to a new riverside promenade.
The reintroduction of the Hunter River to the context of the main street has turned an economic and cultural tide. Shops and businesses are extending their frontages and reorienting to an expansive riverside network of public walkways and promenades.
Maitland Riverlink elevates a prosaic brief to a larger vision for the public good. The materiality of the project is uncompromising, with robustness and hand-finished quality that bespeaks a deeper attitude of civic pride and care.
Maitland Riverlink is located in Maitland, New South Wales and is built on the land of the Wonnarua people.
