Once a cement factory but stll with good industrial bones, the civic spectacle that is the new Sydney Fish Markets positions itself as a contemporary reworking of a familiar waterfront dilemma: how to retain productive infrastructure in locations increasingly claimed by leisure, tourism, and retail, all in a city where the waterfront literally dominates the daily real estate narrative.

Designed by 3XN GXN with BVN Architecture and landscape architects ASPECT Studios, the 10.4-hectare project at Blackwattle Bay on Sydney’s western CBD fringe replaces a historically opaque industrial enclave that is now all at once a wholesale market, public destination and piece of urban infrastructure that is spatial, visual, and operational.

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The site itself is part of a broader transformation of Sydney’s harbour edge, where former working waterfronts have been steadily re-scripted as cultural and recreational precincts. In this context, the decision to retain a fully operational, 24-hour fish market, rather than relocate it beyond the city, is both political and architectural.

“This transforms an underused part of the harbour into a vibrant public realm,” says Audun Opdal, Senior Partner at 3XN.

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Yet the project’s success hinges less on animation alone than on its ability to choreograph conflicting demands: hygiene and openness, efficiency and spectacle, labour, and leisure.

Central to the design is the public market hall, where more than 12,000 sqm are for retail, hospitality, and public circulation use.

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Here, the architecture performs a careful separation of flows. Pedestrians occupy elevated, glazed promenades, while forklifts, trucks and seafood workers move through a parallel industrial system below and behind.

Rather than concealing this infrastructure, the design frames it as part of the experience, allowing visitors to observe the logistics of trade without interrupting them.

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The result is an interior that is both open and utilitarian. Floor-to-ceiling glazing offers uninterrupted western harbour views and visual continuity with the city beyond, while tightly managed climate zones and air-handling systems maintain the strict environmental conditions demanded by seafood processing.

The near absence of odour, a point remarked upon by visitors at the opening a few weeks ago, shows the degree to which sensory experience has been engineered, raising questions about what kinds of “authenticity” are being preserved, and which are being designed out.

This tension is most evident in the treatment of the wholesale auction.

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Conducted via a Dutch-style system in which prices descend rather than rise, the auction is both highly technical and theatrically exposed. Large screens broadcast prices and volumes, while glazing along public routes transforms trading into a spectator event.

As Fred Holt, Partner and Australia Director at 3XN, notes, “We turned an introverted industry inside out.”

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Behind this spectacle lies a dense technical apparatus: live seafood systems, sorting equipment, ice production capable of up to 70 tonnes per day, and a network of 26 lifts linking an underwater basement to trading floors and offices above.

BVN Principal Catherine Skinner describes the project as “a deeply technical building,” one that must operate with industrial precision while maintaining its civic obligations. The architecture mediates this duality through layered access, visual permeability, and strict spatial zoning.

The landscape design extends these ideas to the scale of the public realm. ASPECT Studios treated the waterfront edge as neither park nor promenade in the traditional sense, but as an active interface between land, water, and building.

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Native trees, amphitheatre seating and public art establish a civic foreground, while subtle material cues and flashes of safety red acknowledge the site’s industrial lineage.

The result effect is a site that is neither fully picturesque nor overtly industrial.

As Louise Pearson, Studio Director, ASPECT Studios says, “Perched at the heart of Blackwattle Bay, the waterfront emerges as an inviting edge of water play and public art, celebrating cultures old and new. Native plantings and generous seating define the harbour, while an amphitheatre elevates the public realm into a lively stage. Green pockets and abundant seating introduce subtle ‘fishy’ references, while flashes of safety-red offer a crisp nod to the site’s industrial past.”

Crowning the project is a 20,000 sqm floating roof that functions as both environmental device and symbolic gesture. Spanning 200m and weighing 2,500 tonnes, the undulating structure unifies the complex beneath a single architectural expression.

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Constructed from timber beams and aluminium panels embedded with photovoltaic cells, the roof modulates light, shade, and ventilation, reducing energy use by up to 35%. Rainwater harvesting and on-site wastewater treatment further embed environmental performance into the architectural form.

With a 5 Star Green Star rating and a claim to divert up to 80% of waste from landfill, the market positions sustainability as integral rather than additive. Yet the project’s broader environmental significance lies in its urban argument: that productive, resource-intensive industries can remain within the city, rather than being displaced to its periphery.

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More than a market, the new Sydney Fish Market operates as a prototype for a different kind of waterfront architecture, one that resists the erasure of labour and logistics in favour of leisure alone.

As Opdal suggests, “These two worlds don’t have to be separate.”

The project has clearly shown that industry, when carefully designed, can contribute to public life rather than detract from it.

All images supplied. Photography: Rasmus Hjortshøj and Tom Roe.

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