Architecture

A state-significant development application has been submitted for the first of three towers to be built above Crows Nest metro station on Sydney’s lower North Shore.
Designed by Woods Bagot as part of the Crows Nest Design Consortium, the tower at Site C of the over-station development will be the smallest of the towers at nine storeys, compared to the 17- and 21-storey towers planned for sites B and A, respectively. Providing 3,100 square metres of office space across seven levels, it will sit above the eastern entry for the metro station, facing the intersection of Clarke and Hume streets.
Across all sites, the station’s built form will read as a modestly scaled two-storey brick-clad structure, responding to the material character of the surrounding area.
The tower at Site C will seek to extend this “resolute and sculptural” materiality vertically.
“The brick base is extruded to the envelope to form a simple rectangular prism compatible with the scale of similar brick buildings in Crows Nest,” state the architects.

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Crows Nest OSD Site C by Woods Bagot and the Crows Nest Design Consortium.

“The brick envelope is spliced to create portals evocative of the vertical rhythm of the Blue Gum High Forest… The brick portals are designed to visually ‘clasp’ an assemblage of glazed modules both flush and variably projecting to animate the façade whilst providing a sense of tangible occupancy linked to street life.”
These projecting bay windows will also offer interesting views of the street from the offices. The architects note that the building has been configured with the core distributed along the northern party wall to optimize access for natural light and outlook to local streets, Hume Park and the village beyond.
Though much of the rooftop will be given over to the plantroom functions – since the metro station prevents the provision of a basement plantroom – there will be landscaped rooftop along the west, south and eastern perimeters open to building tenants. The rooftop will incorporate raised landscaped planters below brick-lined portals with three integrated seating alcoves.
Along with Woods Bagot, the Crows Nest Design Consortium includes Oculus, SMEC, Robert Bird and NDY.
The detailed design and construction application for the tower is on public exhibit until 19 July.
NSW planning minster Rob Stokes approved concept designs and building envelopes for all three towers in December 2020. More

Five young teams from across the Asia Pacific have been awarded LafargeHolcim Awards’ Next Generation prizes for “visionary concepts” that advance sustainable design.
Winning first prize, worth US$25,00, was Soledad Patiño, a student of architecture and urban design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design whose project “brings social and economic legitimacy to waterfront districts of Mumbai through a new network of sustainable infrastructure.”
The second prize winner, Mumbai architect Lorenzo Fernandes, also focused on India’s largest city, envisioning an “acupunctural design intervention to improve the sustainability of Mumbai’s informal settlements.” Second prize was worth US$20,000.

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From the second prize winner Lorenzo Fernandes’s entry.

Third prize (US$15,000) went to Bangkok architect Dolathep Chetty of the practice Architects 49 House Design Limited, who developed a proposal “to tackle the coastal erosion and ecosystem threats in the northern Gulf of Thailand while promoting sustainable fishing and tourism.”
The fourth prize was awarded to two teams, which each received US$10,00. One went to Gani Wiratama, Nicholas Rodriques, and Rionaldi Gunari, students at the Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, Indonesia, for a project that “upgrades vernacular river sanitation systems in Jakarta to reconcile ecosystems with the local community.” The other went to architect Divya Jyoti, of Pune-based practice PMA Madhushala for “A multifunctional green facade system implemented in Pune coherently responds to environmental, cultural, and economic concerns.”

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Third prize winning design from Bangkok architect Dolathep Chetty.

The LafargeHolcim Awards aim to promote sustainability in the construction sector, noting that buildings accounts for 40 percent of both energy and material consumption worldwide and that “in view of climate change and diminishing resources, new approaches are needed along the entire value chain of the construction industry.”
Every three years, the competition is held in five world regions and then globally, with the prize money totalling US$2 million. A total of 4,742 projects from 134 countries were submitted for this year’s awards. The Next Generation category and is open to participants up to 30 years of age.
“Many of the entries that we discussed had provocative ideas that were both thoughtful and forward-looking,” said Nirmal Kishnani, professor of architecture at the School of Design and Environment at the National University of Singapore and head of the jury for the Asia Pacific region.
“We were preoccupied with a few questions: How is this an intelligent assessment of a problem? How is this an insightful solution? How is this specific to the challenges of the region?”
For more on the winners, head here. More

An Australian architecture practice and architecture school have unveiled what they’re calling “the world’s first robotic 3D-printed air diffusion system,” a design which could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector.
Developed by BVN and the UTS School of Architecture, Systems Reef 2, or SR2 for short, replaces the steel typically seen in ducted air conditioning systems with recycled plastic. It also replaces square corners with aerodynamic curves and large vents with fine pores.
Designed to fit into existing air-conditioning units, SR2 has already been installed in BVN’s own office space in Sydney.
In a statement published by the university, BVN co-CEO Ninotschka Titchkosky said that when assessing the environmental performance of the building the focus was often limited to the materials or structure.
“At BVN we are also mindful that the electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems inside a building contribute up to 33 percent of the total carbon cost of a typical office building,” she said.

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Systems Reef 2 is the “world’s first robotic 3D-printed air diffusion system.” Image:

UTS School of Architecture

“This means if we are to be serious about reducing the carbon impact of building design, we have to also rethink how we deliver air in buildings. This new system – SR2 – is really about this. It’s 3D-printing air.
“98% of all buildings are existing, therefore if we are to address climate change we need to adapt and reinvent our existing buildings to ensure they remain relevant”
Manufactured at UTS’s Advanced Fabrication Lab, SR2 is robotically 3D-printed and computationally designed, and so the system is adaptable and customizable.
To design team programmed an industrial robot to strategically place thousands of tiny tailor-made pores in elongated tubes that slot together to create a networked system, said UTS associate professor Tim Schork from the School of Architecture at UTS.
“Rather than dumping air at routine intervals across a floorplan, this design distributes the air evenly: meaning that there is a more consistent air temperature and flow and nobody needs to sit under the cold draught of a high-powered vent,” he said.
The system’ distinctive organic curves are based on detailed computer modelling to reduce energy loss and encourage air flow.
“Air doesn’t move in right-angles, so it’s not logical to design an air distribution system with square corners,” said Schork.
The technology will be officially launched at BVN’s studio and via live stream on 24 June. More

A six-level skin cancer treatment and research centre will be built on Melbourne’s St Kilda Road under plans submitted to the City of Melbourne by Alfred Health. The Victorian Melanoma and Clinical Trials Centre will sit on the western edge of The Alfred Hospital at 545 St Kilda Road and is envisioned as a “world-class […] More

An “infamous” lot in North Adelaide that has sat empty for more than 30 years could soon be occupied by a three-tower complex with apartments, shops and offices.
Designed by Woods Bagot, the 88 O’Connell Street project goes before South Australia’s State Commission Assessment Panel on Wednesday, 23 June, three and a half years after the City of Adelaide purchased the site to kick-start its development. Since furniture retailer Le Cornu sold the site in 1989, numerous development proposals have fallen over, leaving a noticeable gap in the otherwise bustling high street.
The council purchased the site in 2018 and then called for expression of interest to find a suitable developer. Commercial and General, and its Woods Bagot-designed proposal for a mixed-use building, was selected. Under the agreement with council, the developer will have to include 15 percent affordable housing and provide public open space at the ground-level corner of Tynte and O’Connell Street as well as ensuring that the planned terrace atop the podium will be publicly accessible.
Above the two-storey podium, the north and south towers will each reach 13 storeys, while the central tower will be 15 storeys. In total the complex will include 176 residential apartments and townhouses, six shop tenancies at ground level and 2,114 square metres of office space on levels one and and two. There’ll also be a 1,006-square-metre “consulting room” on level one, a gym, basement carparking and pedestrian throughfares running both east-west and north-south.

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88 O’Connell Street by Woods Bagot.

Woods Bagot says the tripartite composition will maximize opportunities for corner apartments and capture key views, but members of the public and South Australia’s government architect have some concerns.
Government architect Kirsteen Mackay noted that the city had initially expressed a preference for an eight-storey limit, which “may have established height expectations for the community.” She also expressed concern about the overshadowing consequences to the lower level apartments in the central and southern buildings and overshading impacts to the broader precinct, though her office later acknowledged that the apartment configuration – which ensures east or west frontages with living spaces pushed to the corners – “goes some way to mitigating overshadowing impacts.”
The Advertiser reports that 180 people attended a meeting protesting the development, with a spokesperson for a residents’ group calling the proposal a betrayal. “It is completely inappropriate to overwhelm a historic centre of international significance with a block-long monolithic structure,” he said.
The City of Adelaide supports the proposal. CEO Clare Mockler described Woods Bagot’s design as “an exemplary standard and market leading in South Australia.”
“At a street level, the proposal integrates both commercial and retail spaces to bridge the lifeless gap between Archer and Tynte Street,” she wrote in a letter of support. “At a vertical level, the proposal provides open space for public use as well as sufficient vertically massed residential offerings to organically grow the North Adelaide population.” More

The Architects Accreditation Council of Australia has welcomed the announcement of an in-principle free trade agreement between Australia and United Kingdom, noting that it will pave the way for mutual recognition of qualifications between the two countries.
“This new arrangement enhances the global exchange of skills, expertise, collaboration and employment opportunities – something we have not had with the UK for decades,” said AACA CEO Kathlyn Loseby.
“The AACA, with DFAT’s authorization, is in the final stages of negotiating a Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) that will ‘recognise the professional credentials of architects registered in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand’ and ‘ support their mobility by creating the opportunity to practise beyond their borders’.”
The MRA with the UK was instigated under the AACA’s former CEO Kate Doyle and will “facilitate the registration of an architect registered in the United Kingdom as an Australian architect or New Zealand architect; and the registration of an Australian architect or New Zealand architect as an architect in the United Kingdom.”
“While COVID-19 has put a halt temporarily to international travel and migration, we are forging ahead with this MRA so that when Australia’s borders re-open both our architects and our communities here will be poised to benefit from a much more straightforward skills recognition process,” Loseby said.
“Recognizing architects’ credentials globally will literally open up a whole new world of tremendous opportunities to transform the lived experience of our built environment.”
According to the OECD, Australia’s exports of professional services (which includes architectural services) was about $5.6 billion or 8 percent of Australia’s total service exports in 2016. The UK is the third largest destination market behind the United States and Singapore.
The Royal Institute of British Architects reported in a submission to the UK government that “In 2017, revenue earned by RIBA Chartered Practices from work in Australasia came to £11 million, which is 2% of the sector’s total international revenue.
“There are significant market opportunities for UK architecture in Australia if a mutual recognition agreement can be struck, enabling easier access to the market for UK architects and allowing Australian architects to work in the UK.”
Australia’s trade minister Dan Tehan said, “The FTA will improve working holiday opportunities for youth in both countries. Eligibility to participate will be raised from 30 to 35, stays allowed up to three years, and people will have more freedom to choose where they work.”
Australia has existing mutual recognition arrangements with Canada, New Zealand and the United States through the APEC Architect Project. More

A school on the NSW Far North Coast will get a $20 million upgrade with new and refurbished spaces for teaching and core facilities. Designed by SJB, the project includes a new library, new creative and performing arts building and purpose-built outdoor sports pavilion. An existing block will be refurbished to create flexible learning spaces […] More

Two towers of 30 and 28 storeys will be built adjacent to Melbourne’s Docklands Stadium after councillors gave the green light to Cox Architecture’s amended proposal.
The $400 million project includes the provision of 676 build-to-rent apartments across both towers, along with 3,382 square metres of retail and associated uses within a three-level podium.

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Build-to-rent tower proposed adjacent to Docklands Stadium

Located on the south side of La Trobe Street, the towers will front between Wurundjeri Way to the east, Harbour Esplanade to the west and the concourse of Docklands Stadium to the south.
Although the increased height of the towers – from 23 and 21 storeys – will result in some shadowing of the Docklands Stadium playing field in winter, City of Melbourne planners note that given the lighting technology now employed by the Australian Football League “this will not detrimentally impact the playing surface.”
The podium level will also include a large function space, which could potentially be used by the AFL.
Also located within the podium, at level two, will be communal facilities for the towers’ apartments, including a 25-metre pool, gym, change facilities, lounge and dining, laundry, working hub, resident lounge, pet centre, treatment rooms, kitchen, cinema and a rooftop outdoor terrace area.
Cox Architecture’s design seeks to emphasize the breakup of two towers and the podium, with diverse façade materials and articulation breaking up the building mass to create a “building of buildings.”
With City of Melbourne councillors in support of the proposal, the application will now go before the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. More