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BrentonSmith_Original_02

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<h3>Prefecture 48 is a Japanese-inspired dining precinct, designed for Azabu Group. It comprises six food and beverage venues, each offering a unique culinary narrative.</h3>
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<p>The project brings to life the heritage Foley Brothers building, maximising its historic fabric and sensitively inserting new tales. It is a carefully crafted journey for guests; every corner of the precinct celebrates the best of Japanese cuisine, culture, art, fashion and design.</p>
<p>Guests begin their journey via the arched entrance, and through the historic cartway. From here, each space tells a different story of surprise, intrigue and discovery.</p>


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<p>‘Whiskey Thief’ is the whiskey bar that spans two levels and glows from beyond the central courtyard. The bar itself is clad in a copper material reminiscent of whiskey stills. Lounges are wrapped in a tattooed fabric that references Japan’s cultural underbelly. Moments of wonder reveal themselves in hidden whiskey cabinets and unexpected artworks.</p>
<p>The patisserie walls of ‘Dear Florence’ are glossed and dusted, like the whimsical desserts themselves. A large, arched window looks out to the street, inviting visitors to join in the magic.</p>


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<p>On the other side of the cartway is ‘Ibushi,’ which showcases the fire of the Japanese robatayaki cooking technique. Guests are immersed in textured timbers, soft fabrics and a sweeping woven artwork overhead that feels like the smoke from a robata grill.</p>
<p>Level 1 houses ‘Garaku,’ a kaiseki-style experience where every small piece comes together in a symphony. Interior detailing is intricate and elegant, like the many courses crafted by the chefs.</p>


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<p>Above, Level 2 combines ‘Five’ and ‘Omakase.’ The omakase is an intimate exchange between guest and chef, shared over premium ingredients. The restaurant is slightly raised on a platform, its edges pulled back from the brick walls. A simple timber insertion celebrates Japanese wooden joinery and complements the timber-trussed ceiling. ‘Five’ engages all the senses. It focuses on seasonal produce and zero waste, using the ingredients leftover by the Omakase via their shared kitchen.</p>
<p>The immersive art strategy and signage, developed by Studio Ongarato, weaves through every level of Prefecture 48, from restaurants to shared amenity spaces. It is a voyage through Japanese art, travel, folklore, theatre and entertainment.</p>
<p>Watch the space come to life <a href="https://vimeo.com/1098039053?fl=pl&amp;fe=sh">here</a>.</p>


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Prefecture 48

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<h3>Transurban is an immersive, sensory experience that fosters innovation and wellbeing in a best-in-class office space.</h3>


<p>Occupying three floors of a 26-storey commercial tower at 210 George Street, the highly crafted interior fitout aligns with Transurban’s core business and is a manifestation of infrastructure and scale, and community connectivity.</p>
<p>Connection to materiality is significant to the design, with a Sydney-centric vernacular woven throughout the interior to evoke a strong sense of place. Designed to engage clients and staff, it incorporates textural, natural materials and integrated light to activate the senses.</p>


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<p>The large double-height space is symbolic of the significance of the structures Transurban builds, while the chiselled stone structure of the reception desk is symbolic of excavated strata and earth.</p>
<p>The honesty of the base building’s architectural rawness has been intentionally retained and built upon. The double-height space on the client floor has been designed as an immersion zone.</p>
<p>A technology and digital overlay carried across the base build and into the working and breakout spaces talks to the brand, showcasing Transurban as a dynamic forward-thinking business within the transport sector.</p>
<p>An engagement with nature is made through texture, material and light. Outdoor spaces with natural ventilation integrate living green to foster a sense of wellbeing and harmony.</p>


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Transurban

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<h3>Designed for Aria Property Group, Rivière’s distinctive sawtooth form references the striking and angular faceted shapes of Kangaroo Point Cliffs.</h3>


<p>The form opens up views of Brisbane’s iconic river, the Botanic Gardens and the city’s rapidly changing skyline.</p>
<p>The tower features a unique board-marked concrete and glazed brick façade. The high quality of the architecture’s materiality scales down to the 124 apartments, which are planned to maximise spatial efficiency and views. Each apartment is entered through a perforated metal screen that encourages residents to leave their front doors open, promoting community and allowing apartments to be cross ventilated through the naturally ventilated corridor.</p>


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<p>The cross ventilation is further enhanced by breeze block sunscreens that allow sliding windows to be fully retracted. This, along with an optimised form and orientation help the architecture, as a whole, to leverage Brisbane’s subtropical climate and reduce the building’s overall environmental impact.</p>
<p>Native plants create a distinct landscape palette that stands apart from typical tropical plantings. The landscape works with the interior design to create an urban residential resort; the interiors balance elegance with warmth across all amenity areas. The result are shared spaces — such as Rivière’s stunning lobby and rooftop — that look and feel good, helping to build community across the building.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WxO_OqCDYNk?si=HNNAHhxPf_XEvjGL" width="840" height="472.5" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>


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Rivière

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<h3>The highly crafted interior at Corrs Chambers Westgarth reflects a timeless, innovative and immersive experience for staff and clients.</h3>


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<p>Inspired a strong sense of place, the workplace is sensitively integrated into the Quay Quarter Tower, offering some of the most iconic, uninterrupted views of Sydney Harbour. Occupying four purpose-built floors, each comprising approximately 1,900sqm, the design approach challenged standards for an A-grade base build. The result provides solutions that are more sustainable, improves both wellbeing and productivity, and accommodates a variety of work settings and amenities to foster different work styles and requirements.</p>
<p>Maximising conditions inherited from the base building, a variety of uses were created that respond to and embrace the existing column grid and scale, including shared offices, quiet library zones and intimate seating with banquettes. New lighting technology replaced less efficient base building lighting and introduced localised light, adding a sustainability advantage. Maximising occupation of areas with natural light and considering how work floors are illuminated led to a lighting strategy that responds to circadian rhythms, creating an atmosphere beneficial to staff wellbeing.</p>
<p>Framing the external view and allowing light to enter through the transparent façade simulates a double-height experience and connects the curvature of the interior space with the soft organic topography of the harbour. Modern meeting rooms with glass partitions maximise the view corridor, while curtaining accounts for privacy and acoustics when in use. In the absence of fixed walls, aside from digital displays, all technology is discretely integrated within the space.</p>


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<p>A large conference space with food and beverage facilities enables Corrs to conduct most functions on site rather than rely on third-party venues to entertain and engage staff. Merging external restaurant design with hotel-style conferencing creates a unique corporate offering more akin to a premium hotel conference and restaurant experience. The space opens up further into a separate area for informal meeting and private dining with a partner’s lounge and café for staff and clients.</p>
<p>The installation of an additional staircase promotes movement between floors, while a ‘reflection pond’ feature underneath the existing spiral stairs offers a moment of pause. Furniture and bespoke pieces were sourced locally, while collaborations with local designers and artists give the space a uniquely Australian feel. Suspended in the double-height lobby space is ‘Skylark’ by Kokatha and Nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce and architectural designer Mikhail Rodrick.</p>
<p>The vernacular of materials enhances the connection with the surrounding natural and built environments. The tactility of some materials and textures feel as though waves from the harbour have softened and formed their compound curves, while floor tiles are shaped and patterned in response to the cobbled granite floor tiling surrounding the Opera House.</p>


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Corrs Chambers Westgarth Sydney

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<h3>The design for CBRE Sydney is a deliberate and sophisticated interplay of form, material, and light.</h3>
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<p>The new workplace reflects CBRE’s dynamism, diversity, and leadership across the commercial, residential, and industrial real estate sectors. Located within 363 George Street, the project capitalises on the building’s central core and panoramic views, drawing the energy and skyline of the city deep into the heart of the workplace.</p>
<p>The design process unfolded through a series of considered and strategic interventions, each grounded in concept, materiality, and business objectives. The resulting workplace goes beyond a typical office fitout – it’s a spatial expression of CBRE’s identity: enduring, adaptable, and intrinsically connected to the city.</p>


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<p>By exploring the relationship between positive and negative space – a principle at the heart of real estate – the team developed a design concept that underpins the entire project. A series of built components, articulated as boxes, are arranged to define neighbourhoods for each business line. Each box is clad in timber and frosted glass, guiding wayfinding and maintaining clear sightlines throughout the workplace.</p>
<p>A palette of unconventional, raw building materials further expresses the concept. The central core is wrapped in a ‘Danpalon’ polycarbonate, offering a contemporary reinterpretation of architectural cladding. This treatment transforms the core into a luminous wayfinding element that anchors the workplace and guides movement throughout the space. Meeting room ceilings are finished in OSB board, while perforated, lacquered MDF panels define the breakout zone. On the client floor, the removal of flooring reveals the raw base building slab. These materials not only reflect CBRE’s broad reach across the real estate sector, but also reinforce the authenticity and tactile quality of the space.</p>


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<p>The design leverages the workplace’s 360-degree outlook; reflective materials capture and amplify the city skyline, weaving the urban context into the daily experience of the office. Specialist, diffuse lighting enhances work zones, while gridded lighting in the boardroom references the city grid beyond the workplace walls. A palette of green and complementary hues, along with vibrant furniture selections, bring freshness and vitality to the space.</p>


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CBRE

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<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Little National offers everything that’s needed—and nothing that’s not—to create a hotel that’s unique in structure, architecture and hospitality offer.</span></h3>


<p>Rising 12 storeys, the Little National hotel sits on a tight 800sqm site located directly over Wynyard Walk. The project brief called for a restrained, efficient design that seamlessly integrates architecture and interiors. Instead of acting as an end destination, the hotel’s design needed to generate a full city experience, where guests feel as if they’re part of the CBD. The small site footprint became the key element that unlocks this experience; it required precise planning, with every millimetre carefully allocated and optimised.</p>
<p>This planning begins with the hotel’s lightweight steel structure and Level 2 structural transfer, which enables the building to span the full width of the Wynyard Walk building. The building form has been carefully shaped to sit comfortably within the existing streetscape. The upper level setback maintains a consistent street wall height to Clarence Street, the hotel’s street address, while the overall building height matches the heritage listed Transport House to the east. Level 2 is recessed to visually separate the hotel from the existing podium. The curved northwest and southwest corners complement the site geometry and create visual separation from neighbouring buildings to enhance views up and down the street.</p>
<p>Horizontal curved projections wrap the curve of the northern and western facades, providing sunshading and privacy from street activity. Recessed metal verticals frame the individual picture windows. The design team chose a metallic copper colour for both systems to add warmth to the facades. On the eastern façade, a detached steel frame screen, composed of horizontal metal louvres and planters, softens the harsh urban laneway in front of Transport House and adds privacy.</p>


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<p>Guests enter the hotel from Clarence Street via a small ground level lobby that is visible from the Wynyard Station escalators. An oversized copper clad door and undulating ceiling installation of lights and plantings draw guests through to the lifts that rise to a streamlined level 2 reception, designed to facilitate an efficient check-in. Above, 230 rooms are located over 10 naturally lit, typical floors. All rooms measure 18 sqm and their layouts are identical, notwithstanding accessible rooms in the northwest corner.</p>
<p>The centrepiece of the room is a wooden framed king-sized bed that sits in a picture window; the bed and window occupy the full width and height of the room to add luxury, extend the sense of space and bring the city inside. An integrated desk and wardrobe streamline storage and workspace and minimise floor area occupancy to further open up the room.</p>
<p>True to design intent, the hotel forgoes an in-house restaurant and instead offers one of Sydney’s only CBD hotel rooftops. A steel and glass volume accommodates a library with workspaces, bar and lounge. A deck wraps the space and offers direct, close-up views of the surrounding buildings and down toward Circular Quay and Barangaroo, immersing guests in the city.</p>


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Little National Hotel

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<h3>Pier One Hotel is located within one of Walsh Bay’s heritage-listed finger wharves, on the Sydney Harbour foreshore.</h3>


<p>The refurbishment for TMG Developments encompasses the hotel’s lobby, waterside bar, restaurant, private dining areas and 27 guest rooms.</p>
<p>The unifying design celebrates the raw structure and materiality of the former shipping pier. Architecturally, the new spaces are light, casual, and soft. Diverse textures combine with soft forms and warm, natural materials to provide a calm ambience.</p>
<p>In the lobby, generous ceiling heights and a gold-veined marble floor create a sense of grandeur. Reclaimed timber wall cladding echoes the language of the wharf’s materials.</p>
<p>The bar, relocated to the hotel’s front and centre, is the focus of the public spaces. Its waterside setting takes advantage of harbour views. Bespoke bar and light fittings combine raw and luxurious materials in a unique aesthetic. The atmosphere is casual yet elegant. The all-day dining space expertly balances functionality with the warmth of a club, working from breakfast until late into the night.</p>


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Pier One

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<h3>The design upgrades for the Hyatt Regency involved the masterplan, renovation and expansion of the hotel. The new spaces pay homage to the maritime heritage of Darling Harbour where the hotel is located.</h3>


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<p>The refurbishment for M&amp;L Hospitality maximises water views and establishes a new link between the heritage sandstone buildings and the bustling harbour. The lobby is conceived as an expansive interior piazza, bolstered by a sweeping stair and cascading chandeliers. The lobby bar is an activated backdrop, defined by suspended rope screens that speak to the site’s nautical past.</p>
<p>The hotel’s function spaces — ballrooms and meeting rooms — provide some of the state’s largest conference facilities, all boasting spectacular vistas over the water. Guest rooms and suites are relaxed and sophisticated, flaunting harbour views and more marine-inspired details.</p>


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<p>Upstairs, The Regency Club and Zephyr are a unique pair of hospitality spaces that further celebrate the Hyatt Regency’s harbourside location. A ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ deck concept is applied, as if embodying a luxury ocean liner.</p>
<p>The Regency Club is more formal, functioning as an executive lounge. The long floorplate is defined as a series of five cabins shifting from social, open space to more intimate dining.</p>
<p>Zephyr is the sky bar at rooftop level. With panoramic views of Sydney, the space focuses on clean lines and sensual curves, much like the deck of a yacht. The bar is the centrepiece, drawing customers toward the water’s edge.</p>


Brenton Smith

Director

BDes (Int Des)