McGregor Coxall

SCULPTING SUPERIOR URBAN DESIGNS

MANAGING METROPOLITAN METAMORPHOSES

Specialising in advancing urbanised innovation and developing sustainability solutions within the vast architectural landscape, McGregor Coxall continues to shape a better world

Writer: Ed Budds | Project Manager: Ryan Gray

Existing as a sprawling maze of complex living entities, today’s cities and urban regions embody the aspirations and spirit of our diverse cultures. Dynamic and ever-mutating, the world’s intricately built environments are witnessing constant social and political evolution.

Incorporating bio-city research, digital analysis and the most advanced consultation methods,

McGregor Coxall collaborates with its clients to find solutions for addressing complex urban challenges. Using its impressive bio-urbanism platform, McGregor Coxall assists a diverse range of private and public clients in developing and enabling policies, urban strategies and

implementation guides.

Furthermore, utilising this advisory skillset, the breadth of the company’s portfolio now encompasses metropolitan planning, precinct regeneration and place activation.

Regal Innovations – The Drying Green

Regal Innovations is thrilled to have worked as the lead design and construct contractor for The Drying Green in collaboration with McGregor Coxall, Chrofi, and the City of Sydney. Together, we’ve delivered an outstanding built outcome that’s sure to delight the community.

Our nuanced and innovative design and delivery response catered to the complexities of the design, aspirations, and site conditions. We collaborated closely with the design team to develop concepts from prototyping to final solutions, respecting the design intent and focusing on improved methods and technologies to deliver on the design visions.

At Regal Innovations we take pride in bringing aspirational designs to life. With McGregor Coxall and Chrofi’s stunning geometric form, we transformed the urban landscape into a reconstructed nature wonderland that looks amazing and functions flawlessly.

To achieve this, we fostered an open and collaborative culture among the project team, enabling us to communicate dynamically and respond collectively to issues and opportunities as they arose. Drawing on over 50 years of experience constructing world-class public spaces, we maintained design integrity throughout construction and ensured the project’s vision became a reality.

The park’s complex prism-like geometry presented unique challenges, but we overcame them with four principal mediums: concrete, lawn, water, and planted surfaces. The green berms were originally envisioned as solid, but we improved the design by developing a hollow steel skeletal system to contain infrastructure while allowing easy access for future wetland system repairs. The cladding system, specifically designed for this project, consisted of gabion-like wafer panels to provide a porous growing medium for the climbing fig. Grown offsite, they were installed as a ready-to-live architectural structure. While the project’s form is undoubtedly striking, we also prioritised providing an innovative nature-based solution to the overly engineered drainage systems in the urban environment. This solution is a fundamental driver of the project, improving water quality outcomes from the highly developed urban infill catchment before it re-enters the Botany Bay catchment. A multidisciplinary approach relied primarily on a naturebased filtration solution that intercepted a trunk drainage system and recirculated the stormwater through constructed wetlands and fountains over a threeday period. Supplementing this is a complex filtration, pumping, and monitor infrastructure that ensures water quality outcomes are realised and maintained.

Collaboration between architects, landscape designers, contractors, and other professionals is crucial for successful design outcomes. The Drying Green project is a perfect example of how collaboration can enhance a project’s functionality, sustainability, and aesthetic appeal. Together, we refined the design, developed new construction techniques, and ensured that every detail met the highest standards. Our team leveraged our expertise to create a landscape that functions efficiently while stimulating the imagination and inspiring a sense of wonder. At Regal Innovations we remain committed to fostering strong partnerships to deliver innovative, high-quality, and sustainable designs that leave a lasting positive impact on communities.

Regal Innovations Pty Ltd is a standout leader in the commercial and civil landscaping industry, offering a complete range of construction services to clients across Australia. Established in 1971 as Regal Landscapes, the company has evolved over the years to encompass broader aspects of landscape and civil works, earning a reputation for delivering projects on time, within budget, and with innovative solutions.

Regal Innovations hold honesty, integrity, and fairness as our core values, and we are passionate about building long-term relationships with our clients. We take pride in delivering projects that exceed expectations and realise our clients’ visions. Our expertise in design and construction projects allows us to bring together the best of both worlds to deliver exceptional results that respect the design intent. We use cutting-edge technology, including 3D modelling and building information modelling (BIM), to improve design resolution and communication.

Our services encompass all aspects of the external environment, and are made up of green and blue infrastructure, urban ecology, bush regeneration works, heritage works, and cultural works, including restoration work to heritage sites. We also offer tree supply and planting services with over 1,000 pregrown advanced trees available for delivery to projects and subdivisional works.

At Regal Innovations we understand the importance of maintaining the legacy and integrity of our completed projects. Our maintenance division works tirelessly to ensure our clients’ assets remain in pristine condition, which includes high-profile clients such as The Star Casino, Eden Gardens, Harrington Grove Estate, and The City of Sydney.

Partnering with Sumitomo Forestry Australia in 2021, a subsidiary of Japan’s Sumitomo Forestry Group, has opened new opportunities to expand and secure the future of Regal Innovations. With over 300 years of experience and a global landscaping business that emphasises biodiversity, Sumitomo Forestry Group brings a new level of professionalism and governance to the commercial landscaping industry.

The partnership with Sumitomo Forestry Australia is an opportunity to grow and develop our shared values to improve all aspects of delivering projects in the built environment and minimise our impacts. We are committed to and are actively addressing the urgent need of industry to lead the way to decarbonisation and mitigating the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Innovation, dedication, passion, and creativity are at the heart of everything we do at Regal Innovations.

THE MCGREGOR COXALL APPROACH

• McGregor Coxall approaches all design projects with innovative and contemporary thinking, while ensuring that budgetary and programmatic requirements are always met in full and on time. Solutions need to be costeffective, efficient, sustainable, and delivered in an environment in which risks are managed.

• The company has learnt that organisation and planning are key, and McGregor Coxall now prides itself on open and clear communication, an ability to be agile, and a network of contacts to ensure smooth and efficient delivery in its internal quality assurance systems.

• The awards and competitions the firm has won are evidence of its commitment to design excellence and to a sustainable, holistic process for all projects. This is what distinguishes the company as industry leaders.

Inclusive to this wealth of processes, McGregor Coxall delivers design services that unite a multitude of varied parties to deliver mutually beneficial outcomes for clients, communities and the environment.

BECOMING A PROMINENT CREATIVE FORCE

McGregor Coxall exists today as a multi-disciplinary design firm located in both Australia and the UK.

Combining its considerable international expertise and an extensive bank of experience, with carefully garnered local knowledge and strategic sensitivities, the company provides design solutions for complex urban and environmental

challenges. This is a process that has been built on the understanding of how vital positive spaces can elevate cities, towns, and new metropolitan developments.

Also, crucial to maintaining the highest standards possible, the working culture at McGregor Coxall blurs the boundaries between design and engineering. This allows the company to effortlessly integrate elite technical and design excellence, while weaving culture, ecology, and artistic elements into its innovative designs. Such premium levels of design found in the built and natural environments that McGregor Coxall works in are achieved through a close and seamless working relationship, shared and nurtured with its clients and project teams. Boasting extensive experience in multi-disciplinary projects, these teams ensure the highest level of cohesion across the project delivery team, design leadership and chain of sub-consultants.

Utilising these advantageous assets, McGregor Coxall is on a mission to consistently create exceptional and sustainable outcomes for its clients. This is achieved through its multidisciplinary team

which successfully combines a wide range of expertise across landscape architecture, urban design, and environment design, underpinned by an array of enterprise geospatial information products to help its clients achieve and exceed their overarching goals. The company carries out this process safely and cohesively for every new project, whatever the challenge and location.

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES OF DESIGN

Landscape architecture possesses the enviable power to facilitate meaningful, sustainable connections between people and places. Furthermore, as cities compete across a global stage to retain talent in the knowledge economy, the quality of their public space offering is used as a key measure of their liveability as the sum of factors pertains to the quality of life.

In this way, every great city has active public spaces that play the part of becoming a stage for vibrant urban life.

McGregor Coxall’s landscape architecture services deploy robust design solutions that deliver such beneficial development and conservation

legacies. This is achieved through embracing the notion that intelligent regenerative design intervention can produce definable economic, social, and ecological benefits to enhance both cities and communities.

The global trend towards increased urbanisation brings challenges and opportunities to our collective natural environment. Worldwide, a growing number of prosperous cities are embracing these opportunities by utilising green infrastructure technologies to produce renewable energy and nurture biodiversity within their boundaries. This is being carried out with the aim of reducing carbon intensity and maintaining healthy ecologies, which will be incredibly beneficial to global human health.

Diligent in playing its part in this transition, McGregor Coxall provides environmental services to the water and energy sectors. Supported by its bio-city research, the company assists private and public clients to set targets, develop policies, and prepare environmental plans.

Alongside this, McGregor Coxall is increasingly incorporating technologically advanced engineering and ecological sciences, as a systems-based design approach enhances the resilience of urban, rural and natural environments.

The water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) solutions that the company creates are deployed across regions, cities, and catchments to assist clients and communities in mitigating water scarcity, flooding and stormwater pollution.

Integrating geospatial data, 3D terrain modelling and 3D hydraulic analysis, McGregor Coxall creates science-based land use capability mapping to support its effective master planning services.

BEST IN BIO-URBANISM

The company’s brand-new Bio-urbanism Lab takes the form

of McGregor Coxall’s R&D arm, tasked with hosting a dedicated focus to intensify resilience in cities. This is achieved via a formidable combination of data-driven modelling and advanced design research.

Recognising the need of many cities to embrace smart solutions to tackle shared global challenges, McGregor Coxall initially established its Bio-city Research Lab in 2006. Reborn once again as the Biourbanism Lab in 2022, the company now develops insights through spatial digital twins using advanced location intelligence modelling and geospatial technologies.

Moreover, McGregor Coxall expertly collates data-led practice acts as the

validation behind resilient landscape architecture, urban design, and engineering practices globally.

Similarly, the Bio-urbanism Lab is led by a team of specifically recruited academics and practitioners who possess the ability to solve complicated urban problems through the careful application of computational methods within the design process.

In its work with governments, academia, and public and private sectors, McGregor Coxall’s constantly evolving interdisciplinary ethos and vast knowledge economy are vital in building a less carbon-intensive, better informed, and more prosperous future one project at a time.

SCULPTING SUPERIOR URBAN DESIGNS