Light Line Social Square

Reviewed
Public Art along the Metro North West Line, Light Line Social Square, is playful, poetic and immersive artwork of regional scale. It creates unique, ever- changing environments, for customers to enter into, and travel through, across eight stations and plazas.
A large circular seat is placed in a paved plaza, rounded at the bottom like a piece of fruit cut in half. On its top, a blossom pink panel contains detailed tactile drawings of leaves and flowers. In the background, more seats in different sizes are seen.
In the early morning light, a person in red walks through the Castle Hill station plaza. To either side of them are trees and round and curved furniture, inlaid with red panels containing tactile drawings and text.
The entrance to Hills Showground station has two central escalators and a lift to each side, all with deep orange glass.A curved roof above frames early evening sky, and skylight lanterns in the background glow with orange colour.
From above, a collection of customers are seen riding up the escalator at Norwest station. Below them is the station platform. Light orange glass highlights the escalator against the grey of the station flooring.

Project description

Light Line Social Square is the award-winning public artwork by Michaelie Crawford and Peter McGregor in collaboration with Hassell.

It spans 8 stations from Cherrybrook to Tallawong along the Metro North West Line. This public art creates artful stations and public plazas that are engaging places for commuters and communities alike.

The artwork ‘paints’ the stations with colour, light and seasonal landscapes. It is made up of coloured glass in balustrades, skylights and station facades, sculptural seating, glazed tiled walls, programmed lighting, mist fountains and seasonal landscapes. 

Each station has a vibrant, signature colour inspired by the produce of the region’s historic orchards with:

  • blossom pink at Cherrybrook
  • cherry red at Castle Hill
  • deep orange at Hills Showground
  • light orange at Norwest
  • sunflower yellow at Bella Vista
  • lemon yellow at Kellyville
  • apple green at Rouse Hill 
  • lime green at Tallawong.
A commuter exits the escalator on Bella Vista platform. They are framed by sunflower yellow glass which runs alongside the escalator.
In the plaza of Kellyville station, morning light frames a grove of trees, and round seating elements. Two people are sitting on one of the seats, which are topped by inlaid yellow discs.
Rouse Hill station’s large glass façade is accented with shades of apple green. In the plaza, a teal Metro M sign stands near a collection of round seating. The station glows with colour in the evening sky.
An escalator runs from Tallawong concourse down to platforms. The lighting from inside illuminates the lime green glazing. The tiled walls behind continue the green accents.

Light Line Social Square enlivens the stations and their plazas with the rhythms of the natural world.

It interacts with the light, the weather and the seasons to subtly transform the experience of place, and travel, across the day and throughout the year.

The artwork was commissioned as part of the Metro North West design response selected by Sydney Metro. Hassell, the project’s architects, engaged the artists Michaelie Crawford (Turpin Crawford Studio) and Peter McGregor (McGregor Westlake Architecture) at the outset of the project.

The artists worked in close collaboration with the Hassell team, led by Ross de la Motte, throughout the entire design process. 

The outcome is an extraordinarily integrated artwork of monumental scale.

Orange light warms the concourse of Norwest station. The colour glows through the ceiling lanterns and is also integrated into the elevator and stair glazing.

Artist team

  • Michaelie Crawford, Turpin Crawford Studio 
  • Peter McGregor, McGregor Westlake Architecture 
  • in collaboration with Hassell. 

Artist statement

Light Line Social Square is conceptually based in memory and place and draws upon the relatively recent agricultural history of the region to reference this past and connect it to the present and the future.

The recognisable geometry of the region’s historic orchards, and the vibrant colours of their fresh produce, are translated into the grid layout of the plaza landscapes, and the spectrum of signature colours - one at each station.

The artwork is embedded into the design of each station and is made up of:

  • artful landscapes
  • sculptural furniture
  • transparent coloured glazing in skylight lanterns
  • station facades, lifts, stairs and escalators
  • train activated platform lighting
  • glazed tiled walls
  • playful paving and cooling mist installations. 

The sun shines behind the concourse of Cherrybrook station, framed by a curved timber roofs. The cherry red glass of the two lifts casts long bright shadows on the floor of the station.

 

Light Line Social Square creates an immersive artwork environment, at a regional scale. Commuters can enter it at one station, and exit through it, at another. It is expansive and dynamic.

Light Line Social Square creates an interplay of colour and light, expressed over time, to connect people to nature, the weather, the rhythms of the day and the seasons, and the network time of the metro itself.

The art project is integrated, collaborative and multi-disciplinary. The artists Peter McGregor and Michaelie Crawford, worked closely with the Hassell design team, led by Ross de la Motte, to synthesize: 

  • art
  • architecture
  • engineering
  • urban design
  • landscape and 
  • lighting into an environmental and experiential whole.

The artwork elements

The Metro North West Line travels through the changing topography of the region’s hills and plains, and three different station types respond to the terrain of each locale.

Some of the artwork elements are found at all eight stations, and others are particular to each station type.

From above, the plaza of Hills Showground station is pictured with three people walking through it. Around them are rows of trees surrounded by rounded furniture topped by bright orange panels. A hopscotch tile runs through the rows of trees.

The eight public plaza Urban Groves landscapes recall the region’s historic orchards. The trees and plants are chosen for their flowering or deciduous seasonal colour.

Ephemeral Cloud Room mist installations cool the Urban Groves in summer beneath the elevated station viaducts at Kellyville and Rouse Hill, and playful hopscotch motifs are inlaid into paving, to be discovered at every station.

In the plaza of Tallawong station, a person in a green top leans on a piece of furniture. The round social sphere is inlaid with a lime green circular disc with tactile pictures and text which resemble a cut lime.

The Social Sphere sculptural furniture is inlaid with richly coloured, counter-relief discs of a citrus flower, fruit, tree or orchard field design.

They offer an invitingly tactile connection to the region’s agricultural history and are playfully arranged within the eight Urban Groves - as if fruit, fallen from the trees.

Bella Vista Escalators run from Bella Vista station to its south concourse. Lighting them up are brilliant sunflower yellow glass panels. In the background, the same yellow colour is seen on gloss-glazed tiles in the concrete retaining walls.

The platforms of the open-cut stations at Cherrybrook, Bella Vista and Tallawong are framed with Terrace Lines.

Intermittent lines of gloss-glazed tiles are inset into concrete retaining walls behind these lower-level linear landscapes. They coalesce into vibrant, colour-field expanses, enlivening the spaces under each concourse bridge.

Looking up the long escalators at Castle Hill station, bold cherry red glass panels run to the left and right framing the journey to the plaza.

Transparent coloured glass is a signature, and locale identifying, element at each station.

The transparent colour casts ever-changing swathes of station-hued light across surfaces by day, and glows as a beacon within the broader urban context at night.

Coloured glazing frames the journey from plaza to platform in the escalators, lifts and stairs of each station’s Colour Ways.

Light orange radiates through the concourse of Norwest station. The colour glows through the ceiling lanterns and through the elevator and stair glazing, and will change as the sun moves through the day.

In the Skylight Lanterns at the underground stations of Castle Hill, Hills Showground and Norwest, the coloured glazing illuminates the below-ground concourse halls with shifting kaleidoscopic patterns of light by day - and transforms the Urban Groves landscapes above, into glowing fields at night.

The concourse at Rouse Hill station is lit up by the sun shining through long vertical strips of apple green and lemon yellow glass panels. Through the day, the coloured light will wash over the concourse.

In the Light Screen glazed facades at the elevated stations of Rouse Hill and Kellyville, coloured light casts a twice-daily wash, first from the east, and then from the west, over the airy concourse spaces.

These facades are illuminated as vast, stained-glass windows, within the broader urban context at night.

On the platform at Cherrybrook station, a blossom pink line runs embedded in the floor of the platform in front of platform screen doors. It will rise and fall as the trains arrive and depart.

Light Line is embedded in the ground along the length of both sides of each platform. It marks network time - signalling train arrivals and departures as its illumination rises and falls.

Each side of the platform comprises the colour of the station, and the colour of the ensuing station in the direction of travel. It is like an illuminated thread that connects the eight new stations of the Metro North West Line.

Artist Biography

Michaelie Crawford:

is an artist with a strong commitment to public art. She has shared the highly regarded practice Turpin Crawford Studio with fellow artist, Jennifer Turpin, for over 25 years.

Their work explores the energetic rhythms of nature, and the dynamic relationships between people, place and the natural environment.

Michaelie and Jennifer are responsible for a number award-winning public and environmental artworks, including:

  • S(W)ing, East Sydney Community Centre, Darlinghurst
  • Water Falls, Sydney Park, St Peters
  • Halo, Central Park, Chippendale
  • Windlines, Scout Place, Circular Quay
  • Storm Waters, Victoria Park Zetland
  • Tank, Museum Station Tunnel, Sydney
  • The Memory Line, Clear Paddock Creek, Fairfield and
  • Tied to Tide, Pyrmont Point Park, Pyrmont.

Peter McGregor:

is an artist, architect and urban designer as well as sessional academic. He has an abiding interest in the urban environment.

He is responsible for a number of public artworks in Sydney and NSW and is highly regarded for his use of colour and light.

Peter is founder and director of the award-winning art and architectural practice, McGregor Westlake Architecture.

Artwork projects include:

  • Haymarket Lights, Sydney
  • Llankelly Lights, Kings Cross
  • Movement through Landscape, Parramatta Station and
  • Tidal Lanterns, Crown Street Mall, Wollongong.

Ross de la Motte:

is an award-winning architect and landscape architect, and a Principal of HASSELL.

He is an internationally respected rail specialist and directed the design of the Metro North West.

He has an inclusive approach to design and was instrumental in instigating and facilitating Light Line Social Square as an integral component of the station and precinct designs.

Ross previously led the design of the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link and Parramatta Station. He is the proud son of a Sydney railyards worker and has a strong personal connection to the sector.

Dimensions

Eight stations and precincts. Individual elements, variable.

Medium

Transparent coloured glass, painted cast aluminium, concrete, glazed tiles, paving, mist, LED light, trees, flowering plants.

Credits

  • Turpin Crawford Studio
  • McGregor Westlake Architecture and
  • Hassell.

Awards

The project has received the following awards:

More information

Turpin Crawford Studio
McGregor Westlake Architecture
Hassell

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