A development application has been submitted for a $700 million, 28-storey tower in North Sydney designed by FJMT Studio.
The site is situated at 173-179 Walker Street and 11-17 Hampden Street, in an area known as East Walker Street Precinct. The design consists of a four-storey podium and six terrace houses fronting Walker Street.
The plans for the tower comprise 189 residences, which represents a 29 percent reduction from the initial proposal for a 226-residence tower. The resident parking has also been reduced by a third, from 339 to 228 parks. Five existing residential buildings will be demolished to make way for the development on the amalgamated site.
Proposed designs for a 28-storey tower in North Sydney.
Image:
FJMT Studio
The proposed building features a unique design with the upper storeys cantilevered over the podium in a receding scale. In the design concept submission to the local council, FJMT Studio said the unusual massing had been inspired by the “character of a freshwater gully stream eroding its way through this place of ceremony”.
“The tower and podium forms of Hampden Street suggest horizontally stratified and eroded undercrofts typical of the sandstone escarpments of the harbour and the subtropical gullies of the North Shore,” the report continues.
“With the brick terraces of Walker Street offering sympathetic scale, structure and contemporary reference to the typologies of our post-colonial past.”
The building has been designed within planning controls to maximize access to sunlight and views over Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House and the Harbour Heads for residents and neighbouring buildings.
The development application represents a wider trend of development initiatives in North Sydney. In its “Vision for the North Sydney CBD”, North Sydney Council estimates there will be an additional 20,000 workers in the area by 2036.
There are currently 19 government projects reinforcing Miller Street as North Sydney’s civic spine, joining its new network of parks, plazas, laneways and entertainment precincts.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
