Büro North is proud to have been awarded a Gold, and ‘Best in Class’ category winner at the 2025 Good Design Awards for Sydney Metro Central Station – Customer Centred Design.
As Sydney’s busiest transport interchange and a key heritage landmark, Central Station demanded a design approach balancing complexity, accessibility, and history.
Working with Woods Bagot, John McAslan + Partners, Aurecon / GHD, Laing O’Rourke and Sydney Metro, Büro North led a four-year, user-centred research program involving hundreds of participants with mobility, vision, cognitive, and neurodiverse needs. Using innovative methods such as virtual reality task analysis, interviews, full-scale mock-ups, and co-design workshops, real users were placed at the heart of the design process. The result is a transformative framework that enhances accessibility, clarity, and confidence for more than 250,000 daily passengers. By embedding customer-centred design from the outset, the project reduced operational strain, improved safety and efficiency, and set a new benchmark for inclusive infrastructure.
Being awarded the ‘Good Design Award – Gold & Best in Class Winner’ celebrates Büro North’s position as Australia’s leader in Customer Centred Design (CCD). Knowledge gained from thousands of hours of end-user testing—across major transport, healthcare, and education projects nationally and internationally—continues to inform our design processes, ensuring evidence-led, inclusive, and intuitive outcomes.
Jury Comments:
“Central Station, Australia’s busiest transport hub with over 250,000 daily users, required integration of a new transport mode and major upgrades. Research developed in collaboration with WoodsBagot, and JMP Architects identified and validated design changes to enhance accessibility, inclusivity, and the overall customer experience across key areas of the station. The Jury highlights this project as a standout example of design excellence and should be awarded at the highest level. Well done.”
A huge thank you to Sydney Metro for their ongoing commitment to designing places that work for everyone—where empathy, evidence, and innovation combine to deliver meaningful human outcomes.
Learn more here at the 2025 Good Design Awards.
