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<h3>The design for the Chifley South tower complements and respects the existing Chifley North tower, while being clearly of the 21st century in terms of people amenity, workplace and environmental performance.</h3>

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Chifley Square is a distinguished address in the Sydney CBD. The design for the new Chifley South tower will establish a unified precinct alongside the existing Chifley North tower, while the revitalised podium and public domain below will provide shared amenity and activate an urban ensemble.
The new integrated ground plane will have a double-height arcade between Bent Street and Hunter Street that opens the podium generously to the city. At the heart of this arcade is a grand urban room bringing together the entry lobby, business lounge, wellness, and retail spaces.
When complete, Chifley South will deliver over 50,000 sqm of next generation, sustainable workplace and amenity space.

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Chifley South

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<h3>Hunter + Pitt is set to become the world’s tallest timber hybrid tower, and one of the world’s most sustainable buildings.</h3>
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The project sets a new benchmark for office towers in its blending of architecture, lifestyle, wellbeing and environmental credentials.
The project occupies a pivotal CBD location on the corner of Hunter and Pitt Streets, servicing the adjacent Hunter Street Metro and nearby Martin Place Metro stations. It retains the heritage Pangas House and adds a 55-storey timber hybrid tower above. A new 3-storey podium building will bring restaurants into this part of the CBD, along with a public roof garden.
The distinct tower form is articulated in three stacked volumes, separated by village decks with outdoor terraces. A tapered form provides solar access to the laneway below. The crown accommodates two levels of communal space for work and play.

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At ground, the design responds to place, culture and Country. Public artworks focus on the importance of water to the Gadigal People, especially the original Tank Stream that flowed underneath. A new laneway connects Pitt Street to the Hunter Street Metro. It creates a two-level public space, activated with retail and dining and converging in a protected forecourt. Materials speak of Sydney; sandstone offcuts quarried from the site during excavation clad the podium.
Principles of reduce, reuse and restore drive the tower’s sustainability. The project prioritises high performance, access to fresh air, sunlight and landscape, and circularity of materials. Photovoltaics are integrated directly into the glass façade. This forms a solar skin that can provide the tower with 15% of its energy requirements. Timber hybrid floor structures are used for 80% of the tower, while dematerialised workplace interiors reduce embodied carbon.

Hunter + Pitt

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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>

The form opens up views of Brisbane’s iconic river, the Botanic Gardens and the city’s rapidly changing skyline.
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.

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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.
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.
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Rivière

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<h3>Workshop unites large office spaces for global creative companies, small spaces for startups and shopfronts, an indoor/outdoor sunken café, a double height gym, and a childcare centre.</h3>

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Workshop&#8217;s expression is of its place, and its integrated interior supports 21st century whole wellbeing. Together, these design features stich Workshop into the neighbourhood and allow the building to give back, enhancing Pyrmont’s fabric.
The campus workplace is contained within two 4 and 6-storey linear volumes that are set back on the upper levels to preserve sunlight to the residential buildings to the south. They are located over a recessed two storey base that accommodates the childcare centre, gym, and small shopfronts. This mix helps create active street frontages. The commercial entry lobby is located between the volumes off Harris Street at upper ground level.
The façade’s 450mm deep terracotta frame recalls the robust materiality of Pyrmont’s brick warehouses. It has square proportions and splayed verticals with bronze reveals. Within the frames, large 3.5m x 3.5m frameless picture windows allow light to stream inside, maximise views and connect the activity inside to the activity outside on the street. At the top of the building the terracotta frame transitions to bronze aluminium to acknowledge its stepped form.

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Inside, Workshop is designed for wellbeing, flexibility, collaboration and social connectivity. Its anchor spatial feature is its 2,640sqm campus floorplates organised around a central, full height atrium. This space is timber lined, naturally lit from rooftop glazing, and features vertical gardens with audible flowing water, and an open black steel stair—elements that forge strong connections to nature. Wintergardens with large operable windows counterpoint the atrium at each end of the building, pulling the connection to nature through the entire floorplate.
On either side of the atrium and central core a concrete structure with a 15m span provides flexible column free workspace. Concrete beams and soffits are exposed and uplit to maximise the sense of space and avoid creating a vacuous tiled office floor. The interior throughout is left consciously raw, with exposed building services, concrete floors and columns complemented by an authentic and tactile palette of timber, steel and indoor planting.

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A large, landscaped rooftop terrace provides flexible outdoor space with city and water views.
At ground the building takes advantage of its island site and sloping topography to accommodate neighbourhood scale uses on all streets and over multiple levels. The large café occupies the corner of the site, off Harris Street, doubling as an informal building entry. It also has vertical bifold doors that open onto a double height sunlit terrace. The gym is entered off the other corner of the site on Harris Street and connects to extensive end-of-trip facilities. The small loft tenancies line Harvey Street and feature individual entries, double height entries and mezzanine floors. The childcare centre is entered on grade off Mount Street Walk with outdoor play space overlooking Bowman Street.
Together, these features stich Workshop into the neighbourhood and allow the building to give back, enhancing Pyrmont’s fabric.

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Workshop

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<h3>Iglu Summer Hill has been carefully designed to improve street activation and sit sympathetically within its park, village and heritage setting.</h3>

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Iglu Summer Hill is a student accommodation community situated in the heart of Summer Hill Village, in close proximity to Summer Hill train station, and adjacent to the Darrell Jackson Gardens and the local shopping precinct. The existing heritage-listed Western Suburbs District Ambulance Station building located on the site has been restored and re-purposed as part of the student accommodation.
The development accommodates 184 studios, with self-contained kitchens and bathrooms, and is supported by a diversity of indoor and outdoor communal spaces. New 3- and 4-storey buildings adjoin the heritage listed Ambulance Station. Together they frame a generous communal landscaped courtyard which has excellent access to sunlight and provides shelter from train and traffic noise.
The form and scale of the new buildings are consistent with the existing heritage building and surrounding low-rise context. The north edge is setback from the boundary along Carlton Crescent to increase footpath width and emphasise the primary entry through the heritage building. Facades are defined by vertical brickwork piers and framed picture windows that reflect the structure and repetition of individual studios. Their proportions balance privacy and outlook and present a strong masonry character consistent with the Summer Hill context. The upper level has been setback from the heritage building and defined by lightweight metal frames.

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Landscaping is integral at Iglu Summer Hill. The large courtyard forms a central feature, framed by inner façade planting to the north and south. Throughout the development, open circulation corridors and breezeways are defined with vertical planting, and picture window frames integrate planters. On the outer west and south facades, a generous green edge establishes a cohesive relationship with the park and ensures visual privacy for students.
Inside, generous communal spaces provide residential amenity, support study and promote a strong sense of community. A lounge, kitchen, gym and study rooms are organised around a large double height void with an open stair. The void reconciles the level change across the site and provides sunlight to the lounge and communal kitchen at the lower courtyard level. Beyond the courtyard seating is an outdoor terrace with a BBQ area.
The majority of studios are orientated to the east and west, benefiting from park and courtyard outlooks. Beds are oriented against the façade, doubling as sofas and optimising studio space. They are framed by full height picture windows with deep reveals, providing abundant natural light, views and ventilation but also shading and privacy.
Sustainability was a key design driver at Iglu Summer Hill. Passive design measures include open naturally ventilated corridors, cross-ventilated studios, sun shading to glazing and extensive landscaped areas. Iglu is committed to clean renewable energy, and to the Inner West community’s zero emissions goal. To this end, the project accommodates a 100kW PV system with integrated battery storage, which will reduce annual CO2 greenhouse gas emissions by 138 tonnes.

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Iglu Summer Hill

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<h3>Iglu Mascot’s architecture centres on community in two ways.</h3>
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The building provides a much needed, high quality home to more than 430 university students located within 200 metres from Mascot Station. It also works hard to lift Mascot’s built environment, one which is dominated by bland residential super blocks, high levels of traffic congestion, a lack of public open space and less than 10% tree canopy.

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We designed the building as three interconnected rectilinear volumes of varying height organized around a 35m x 18m landscaped courtyard. The siting of the volumes frames a highly efficient C-shaped plan, with reduced height to the south hiding the bulk of the building behind the street wall. Building height, form and orientation have been carefully composed to sit sympathetically within the established urban context, maximising outlook and view sharing. Colour and materiality is integral to the design and communal outdoor spaces and soft landscaping have been maximised to improve liveability and set a new precedent for neighbourhood architecture.
We wrapped the buildings in a precast concrete grid that embraces the modularity of the apartments. The horizontal projects 350mm from the large awning windows to provide shading, while the vertical piers are set back 100mm to enhance the façade’s visual depth. The grid extends above the rooftop to create a crown and to frame the roof terrace and basketball court. At the base the central volume is elevated to express the double height communal spaces within.

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Colour works with the grid: each volume has its own two colours, a lighter colour for the matt pigmented concrete, and a darker colour for the glossy metal infill panels that sit between the vertical piers and windows. We drew all colours from Mascot’s older homes and brick warehouses. When read together, they create a tonal composition the unifies the whole building while creating depth and texture.
Inside, the building balances efficient studio and 6xbed cluster apartments with generous shared amenities. Beds in cluster apartments are oriented against the windows, doubling as sofas and optimising space and access to light and fresh air.

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The ground plane is organised across two interconnected floors accommodating communal facilities anchored by the eastern courtyard. Its plantings are layered: historic Mascot species mixed with exotic species add canopy and understory to the site. Residents enter the building on the southern side of the upper ground level, where the café and lounge are located; walking beyond leads to reception, formal meeting rooms, communal spaces, and a terrace, all wrapped around the courtyard.
A double-height void and wide stair lead to lower ground, where the media room, gym, library, games, laundry, bike storage and more communal spaces are located. The floor opens directly onto the covered BBQ area and courtyard, connecting residents directly to the large greenspace. The green at lower ground is mirrored on the roof, where a large, landscaped terrace and basketball court offer more spaces for socialising and play.

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Iglu Mascot

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<h3>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.</h3>

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.
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.
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.

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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.
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.
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.

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Little National Hotel

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<h3>The Gantry involved the careful integration of new residential buildings with industrial building fabric, with the aim of preserving the rich history of the site.</h3>

The neighbourhood consists of four apartment buildings and twenty six terraces accommodating a diverse range of housing types, all organised around a large landscaped courtyard.
A new publicly accessible lane way and neighbourhood street provides the surrounding community with new mid block pedestrian links. Gantry Lane extends the street pattern into the site and is activated by ground floor retail tenancies and residential terraces to provide enhanced pedestrian amenity and vehicular access.
The buildings accommodate 191 dwellings in a diverse range of housing types including 1 and 2-bedroom single storey apartments, 2 and 3-bedroom terrace homes and 3-bedroom upper level penthouses.
Along Australia Street the industrial facades of the 1920&#8217;s Motor Car Works have been retained and carefully restored. Their distinctive sawtooth pattern consists of 14 identical gabled parapets, each with a large semicircular, timber louvred vent and stepped brick string course, make a significant contribution to the streetscape character of Australia Street and help to reflect the history of the suburb.
A series of terrace houses are located behind the existing sawtooth façade within the form of the simply pitched roof bays. The existing steel trusses, which are highly visible over the pedestrian laneway, have been restored and reused to recreate the sawtooth roof.

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To the north of the site the gable ends to the historic High Bay Building have been retained while the party walls and roof have been rebuilt in their original form to accommodate openings for balconies, windows and doors to two-storey terrace and loft apartments.
Two new 5 storey apartment buildings, separated by the new pedestrian laneway, define the frontage to Denison Street. The buildings are vertically articulated by a single storey brick base and a setback top floor. Solid masonry up stands and a combination of fixed and operable louvred screens provide apartments with privacy to the street and protection from low angle western sun. On the courtyard side large balconies and full height windows maximise city and park views to the east over the 2 storey terraces. These multi-core buildings ensure that a high percentage of apartments enjoy cross ventilation and a dual aspect while separate entries activate the street. These entries have ‘through lobbies’ that provide a visual connection between the street and the internal courtyard.
A third 5-6 storey apartment building fronts Parramatta Road to the north of the site. Here balconies have glass acoustic screens that minimise the impact of traffic noise from Parramatta Road while allowing apartments to enjoy good solar access and views. The compact one bedroom apartments adopt a number of design features that aim to provide flexibility, maximise efficiency and enhance the sense of space.

Guy Lake

Director

BArch, PgDipArch, RAIA