At Barangaroo South on Sydney's central business district waterfront, Australia, Lend Lease is working with the New South Wales government on the A$6 billion (£4 billion) transformation of a former container port into a thriving business, residential and leisure precinct. The vision is that Barangaroo South will enhance Sydney's position as an internationally appealing, globally competitive, environmentally sustainable city. The development will be Australia's first large-scale carbon dioxide neutral precinct. Barangaroo South will feature three commercial towers ranging in height from 39 to 49 storeys, sharing a common, two-level basement to be retained around its perimeter by an approximately 770 m long diaphragm wall, socketed into Sydney …show more content…
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Barangaroo has a long post-European settlement history of industrial use, predominantly as wharfage but also as a gasworks. The original, undeveloped natural shoreline comprised rocky outcrops and mangrove swamps. The first wharves were built at Millers Point in the mid-1820s and there are reports that parts of Barangaroo were utilised as wharfage as early as 1788. The gasworks were constructed in 1840 on the coastline of the time and substantial reclamation of the area took place during the mid- and late nineteenth century, with a sandstone block harbour wall and numerous wharves constructed at this time.

Following the demolition and backfilling of the gasworks in 1925, timber wharves were constructed in its place and further northward, such that by the end of the 1930s the entire shoreline in the site area was fronted by timber wharves extending from a sandstone harbour wall. In the early 1970s a concrete caisson harbour wall, which still forms the western boundary of the current site, was constructed parallel to and some 150 m out from the former harbour wall and the reclamation formed by end dumping of fill. The timber finger wharf piers were left in place and a variable depth of predominantly sandstone rubble fill up to 21 m was placed between the two harbour walls. Prior to redevelopment, Barangaroo was occupied by a shipping and overseas passenger terminal, with the majority of the site covered by hardstand, with areas of suspended concrete