Quay Quarter Sydney by AMP Capital
Quay Quarter Sydney by AMP Capital
Quay Quarter Sydney involves the $2.1bn transformation of two city blocks in Sydney’s Circular Quay area, centred around the visionary adaptive reuse of a 50-year old office tower. The redevelopment has since acted as a catalyst for further urban renewal in an iconic location in the city.
Quay Quarter Lanes is the first part of the project. It involves the redevelopment of an entire city block of old office buildings, together with a service lane, into a thriving new neighbourhood that features restored heritage buildings, new boutique office space, three residential buildings, and a A$6m public space programme with arcades and through-site links.
While Quay Quarter Lanes can be seen as a triumph of placemaking, it is the adaptive reuse of the site’s 49-storey office building at 50 Bridge Street that is the project’s most striking component. The main reason for choosing a reuse strategy was a ruling by the local council that a demolition/rebuild approach would require the height of the new structure be lowered to a level consistent with that of the surrounding streetscape. As this implied a loss in elevation of about 30 percent, the financial consequences convinced owners AMP Capital they should adapt the existing structure instead.
The adaptive reuse of Quay Quarter Tower was no mean feat, however. In a world-first design approach, architects conserved only the tower’s original core, stripping the building down to concrete and steel and, in a process of structural gymnastics, then grafting new floor plates, thereby doubling net lettable area to 89,000 sq metres.
Risk was high given the significant innovation in design, structural engineering, and construction methodology needed to stitch the existing concrete tower with a new steel and concrete structure. The result, however, is a replicable model of how high-rise adaptive reuse can be successfully pursued from both design and financial perspectives.
Five new articulations were levered out from the core, creating light-filled multistorey atriums connected by spiral staircases, encouraging occupants to walk rather than take a lift. The new floor plates have higher ceilings and are fully modular, with a de-constructible floor system providing extensive leasing flexibility and allowing future tenants the option to create individualised workspaces by removing floor sections or adding them back.
The renovated building offers upgraded operational carbon performance to a level that surpasses that of many newly-constructed buildings, achieving a 6-Start Green Star rating and a likely NABERS 5.5 Energy Office rating (both domestic Australian standards). The self-shading façade reduces solar radiation by up to 30 percent, minimising mechanical loads while eliminating the need for internal blinds and maximising views over Sydney harbour.
The decision in this case to reuse original structures instead of knocking them down (and not just for Quay Quarter Tower but across the entire Quay Quarter precinct) is testament to an emerging philosophy of redevelopment whereby conservation of structural embodied carbon (some 12,000 tons in concrete alone in the case of the Tower) can still evoke spectacular design results that will be in high demand from blue-chip tenants.
As one juror said: “What’s most important is that they’ve taken a 1970s building in a 1970s area that was really grubby and didn’t invite people to pass through — what’s to be celebrated is not just the design and sustainability components, but also the fact that they’ve been able to create a precinct without having to knock a building down because they’ve retained a lot of those original structures.”