Bates Smart won the City of Sydney Design Excellence competition for a new commercial tower and retail podium at 420 George Street. The design challenge was to insert a large scale mixed-use building incorporating four levels of retail with 28 levels of commercial space, and seamlessly stitched into the fabric of a city. In response, we created a highly contemporary addition to the city that respects its historic neighbours and provides an active public mid-block link.

The tower is expressed as two contrasting volumes expressing its side core parti. A solid granite volume houses the core and a transparent glazed volume houses the floorplates, which are expressed as ‘trays’ suspended between two planes of glass. A 10-storey atrium is created adjacent to Dymocks to provide privacy and light access; resulting in a low-rise a campus office.

The retail podium is an uncompromisingly modern insertion into the streetscape that references its historic neighbours. The facade reinterprets the cornices and vertical masonry proportioning of the adjoining heritage buildings in a contemporary language.

A genuinely public mid-block link creates a direct connection between Pitt and George Streets. The office lobby and entries to the mid-block link are expressed as urban rooms, defined by sandstone blade walls, which provide a transition to the scale of the city.