Masterplanning Adelaide’s new inner-city neighbourhood

Leading a multidisciplinary masterplan process

We led a highly collaborative design process, beginning with a two-day symposium to establish the project vision and set the tone for ongoing engagement. At each project stage we held in-person design charrettes – collaborative design workshops – allowing the multidisciplinary team and client team to review progress, refine ideas and agree on key design directions.

The masterplan for Thebarton began with the definition of key development parameters, including vision, land use, movement, open space, massing, infrastructure and phasing. These informed a spatial strategy that integrates apartments and townhouses within a cohesive street network that extends the adjoining streets, and defaults to the retained historic artifacts.

This structured yet inclusive process gave voice and agency to project stakeholders, including direct and indirect clients, design disciplines, and external stakeholders, bringing a shared sense of ownership and resulting strong social licence for the proposals. 

Guiding principles and performance for sustainable living

The Thebarton Masterplan is shaped by five core principles:

With the river: Southwark Grounds is immersed in and connected to its riverine setting, with increased public frontage to Karrawirra Parri and a new park, Brewery Green, which links directly to the riverfront and surrounding landscape.

In the city: The masterplan reinstates the historic street grid, creating a fine-grain urban structure of new streets, homes, shops, parks and laneways. Industrial heritage features are restored and integrated as civic markers, while a strong frontage to Port Road and the Adelaide Park Lands establishes a strong urban presence.

As a neighborhood: The precinct is shaped for density, community connection, and living in harmony with nature. Prioritizing walkability and active transport, the design encourages human movement through a network of welcoming, accessible spaces. Strategic design guidelines foster strong relationships between buildings and streets, support a target of 20 per cent affordable housing, and ensure a vibrant, high-quality public realm.

For everyone: Southwark Grounds is a welcoming neighborhood for all of Adelaide’s communities, with quality homes and affordable housing The plan invites participation from across the city and includes First Nations partnerships to reflect Kaurna knowledge, identity and custodianship in the public realm.

Embedding sustainability: Sustainability is embedded across environmental, social, cultural and economic dimensions, with an aspiration to achieve a 6-Star Green Star Communities rating. Key strategies proposed include a target for 30 per cent tree canopy coverage to deliver urban shading, climate-resilient public spaces, and a low-carbon mobility network that included exploration of a potential mobility hub.

Strategic design guidelines were developed to embed long-term quality and flexibility for development partner delivery. These guidelines define expectations for built form, materiality, interface conditions and landscape integration promoting a consistent approach to design while enabling innovative and context-responsive development aligned with the masterplan’s aspirations. 

Building design supports diverse living options

Led by our partner Breathe Architecture, we developed a suite of sample building typologies and tested these to align with the precinct’s urban design and sustainability ambitions against the target yields. Grounded in principles of liveability, deliverability, climate performance and community connection, the typologies include mid-rise apartments and townhouses with flexible layouts that support diverse living arrangements.

The masterplan seeks to deliver active ground floor uses are concentrated in areas of high footfall and climate amenity.  Indicative street layouts and building footprints can be arranged to optimize sunlight, shade and natural ventilation, as well as creating a comfortable microclimate across the public realm. Street walls and orientations are carefully calibrated to pair high-quality architecture with well-scaled, active streets and public spaces that encourage walking, cycling and social interaction. Potential to explore a new approach to precinct car parking in the form of a mobility hub is integrated within the masterplan to encourage mode shift and reduce car dependency, to be tested with the development sector.

Modern living in nature

Led by our partner TCL, we created the open space and public realm strategy for Southwark Grounds to reimagine the precinct as a connected network of green, recreational places designed to re-engage the river, restore ecology, honor cultural heritage and enhance liveability.

A revitalized riparian edge along the river forms the ecological backbone of the site, linking a series of diverse open spaces including the civic Brewery Green, the Walsh Street Linear Park, Colonel Light’s Plaza, and a network of nature-rich laneways and streetscapes. These spaces prioritise pedestrian movement, water-sensitive urban design, urban cooling, and community wellbeing.

Heritage elements such as the Walkerville Brew Tower and Colonel Light’s ‘Theberton’ Cottage foundations are sensitively integrated into the public realm, combining cultural and heritage storytelling with functional amenity. The natural systems associated with water are further embedded through stormwater harvesting, reinforcing the precinct’s resilience and long-term environmental performance.

Creating a people-first transport experience

The movement strategy for Southwark Grounds was developed through close collaboration between our transportation team, urban designers, and landscape architects, positioning the precinct as a pedestrian-first, holistic environment. By aligning the vision with the site’s inherent connectivity advantages, the strategy delivers a balanced framework that prioritises human-scale interaction and accessibility.

Key features include a fine-grained street network, low-speed shared zones, and seamless integration of active and public transport modes. A potential mobility hub concept included within the masterplan could support car-lite living by offering electric vehicle charging, bike share facilities, and flexible transport services tailored to residents’ needs. Vehicle access is carefully controlled, with walking and cycling-friendly streets creating a safe and inclusive public realm.

Aligning development with water resources

The Thebarton Masterplan for explores integrated water management (IWM) as a central sustainability mechanism, to support climate resilience, water security, and neighborhood liveability. The integrated team developed the IWM strategy, which extends beyond regulatory compliance to provide a potential strategy for exploration in detailed design to deliver a regenerative water system responsive to place, people, and Country.

Informed by hydrological modelling, cross-agency collaboration, the strategy identifies a range of scalable interventions for rainwater capture, greywater reuse, stormwater harvesting, and passive irrigation across lot, street, and precinct scales. Water is conceptualized within the masterplan not merely as infrastructure but as a dynamic, living system that could be visibly integrated into the public realm to enhance urban greening, cooling, biodiversity, and community connection.