Madeline directed the Line-wide Heritage Interpretation Strategy for the Sydney Metro West Line, shaping the cultural vision for one of Australia’s largest and most complex infrastructure corridors, spanning from Westmead to the Sydney CBD. Working at a city-wide scale, the project integrated millennia of stories into a cohesive framework defining how the line and its precincts will be experienced.

The project involved a comprehensive stakeholder engagement brief, including a Connecting with Country collaboration with Murawin and First Nations Elders, as well as consultation with multiple local councils and government agencies, synthesising diverse perspectives into a unified direction.

A major component of the project was authoring a detailed history, including suburb-by-suburb narratives and a line-wide story tracing the evolution of the landscape from deep time to the present. This research connected the formation of the Parramatta River and its waterways, the enduring knowledge systems of the Dharug people, and the later layers of colonisation, industry, and migration that have shaped Sydney.

The work underpinned the “Freshwater to Saltwater” theme, a powerful organising narrative linking Country, culture, and city-making across the corridor. This provided intellectual depth and a clear storytelling structure, enabling complex histories to be translated into interpretation, design, and public art outcomes.

The strategy established a practical, scalable framework for heritage interpretation, design, and public art across all stations and precincts along the line.