Underground and under planned: Architects protest big void in Barangaroo

A number of architects are calling for a halt to plans approved for a 100,000-cubic metre ''void'' to be constructed beneath the new Barangaroo headland in Sydney.

The NSW government has approved a new natural-looking headland designed by the US landscape architect Peter Walker, with the next stage due a call for tenders to build.

But a group of prominent architects have questioned the decision-making process behind plans for a large shell, which is without any assigned purpose, to be built above a two-storey underground carpark.

The state government's Barangaroo Delivery Authority told the Sydney Morning Herald the space would suit a range of cultural uses, such as a gallery, museum, performing arts space, artists' studios and education and learning facilities.

Adding the space will cost $8 million and will have ''maximum flexibility'' for any fit-out.

However the newspaper reported that the planning decision had “bewildered” some architects, such as Peter Webber, a former NSW government architect and now emeritus professor of architecture at the University of Sydney, who said it “would be nonsense to construct a space without knowing what you are going to put inside it”.