Save Our Sirius
Fighting for heritage listing
The “Save Our Sirius” (SOS) movement emerged in the 2010s as a community-led campaign to protect the Sirius Building in Sydney from redevelopment and potential loss.
At its core, the movement brought together residents, architects, heritage advocates, and the broader public who saw Sirius as both a culturally significant place and a rare example of inner-city public housing. Supporters argued that the building represented the legacy of the Green Bans movement, embodying a commitment to community preservation in The Rocks.
A major focus of the SOS campaign was securing heritage protection. Advocacy groups, including Save Our Sirius Foundation, pushed for the building to be listed on the State Heritage Register, highlighting its importance as a landmark of Brutalist architecture and its social history. This effort gained widespread public attention, with petitions, protests, and media campaigns amplifying the cause.
Despite initial setbacks—when heritage listing was denied—the movement persisted, supported by architects and public figures who argued for the building’s preservation. The campaign became a broader symbol of debates around heritage, urban development, and the value of public housing in central Sydney.
Although lacking state protection, the World Monuments Fund placed the building on its 2018 World Monuments Watch list, highlighting its global cultural and architectural significance.
THE AWARD WINNING BOOK: SIRIUS
“Sirius was built to house a broad, inclusive community. Quite a remarkable story. Really without parallel. The Sirius building wanted to give people a new, dignified, life. I didn’t know, even though I’d drawn the area and walked past Sirius hundreds of times, I didn’t get it. Until I went on one of the tours and went into the foyer and went into the gardens and here was a building that was 40 years old, that was like the day it was built. Now buildings are only like that when the community loves them. The foyer of Sirius is a remarkable work. It really is a community room for the building. Sirius is a model of how you can build public housing for society, and not just as real estate.”
—Philip Thalis opening address – This is Sirius
Sirius describes an extraordinary story of survival against the odds and traces the design, life and community of one of the most notable Brutalist buildings in Australia, and a successful long-running social housing community.
The story of Sirius begins with the 1970s Battle for The Rocks and a Green Ban, which saved an historic precinct located under and around the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge. The four-year Green Ban ended once it was agreed to build Sirius to house displaced public tenants after a controversial redevelopment proposal for the area. Architect Tao Gofers explains how this agreement was reached and how he designed a vertical village perhaps the last, and arguably the most successful, tower built for public housing in this era.
In 2015, Sirius itself became the centre of controversy as the New South Wales Government sought to sell off the building to developers and remove its public housing residents, forever changing the fabric of the local community and Sirius’s original intention.
Local Millers Point, Dawes Point and Rocks residents joined with hundreds of passionate advocates from across Australia – including architects, professional bodies and the Historic Houses Trust, to protest against this change. The “Save Our Sirius” campaign was born, of which Piper Press and its publishers John Dunn and Margaret Bishop were key participants.
