Tony Owen designed Eliza development at the forefront of contemporary architecture

The innovative design of Sydney’s blue chip Eliza development has the town talking.

Eliza is situated on Elizabeth Street in Sydney’s CBD, overlooking Hyde Park. According to the building’s architect, Tony Owens, the development’s location was the major influence on its design, from its curvaceous façade to its materials.

“It all starts with the site,” said Owen. “It’s surrounded by some of Sydney’s most important buildings. We always do a contemporary design, but we wanted to do a design with those buildings as well. So we used traditional materials like sandstone and steel, but we did it in a contemporary way.”

Each of Eliza’s 17 floors is different from the last, a practice Owen says was previously unheard of.

“Each level has a different floor plan, because each level has different views and different amounts of sunlight. And we found that as you went up the building, the situation changed.

“In the past, you wouldn’t conceive of having a different structure on each level.”

But thanks to the advent of new technology, Tony Owen Partners has been able to create a building that would have been unfeasible three years ago. Owens’s own home attracted attention last year when Moebius House [pictured below], which he designed using early versions of similar technology, hit the market.

“Every project we do represents a jump in technology,” Owen said.

“We started with some more basic things like the Harley Davidson headquarters [pictured below], and then with each project it became more complicated and exciting.”

Both the Eliza’s design and its fabrication were made possible by recent technological advancements, says Owen.

“The building’s materials were actually fabricated by robots. The robots would take a block of stone, and would cut shapes exactly to our computer’s specifications,” he said. “We used digital technology to not only design the façade but also break it down into parts, so that we could easily manufacture it.

“We had to consider: if you have a wiggly line, how do you break it down into pieces that are sensible and practical to build? This technology didn’t exist three years ago, but it exists now. And it means a very complicated design can be brought down to a very inexpensive standard.”

Eliza, developed by Ceerose, has 19 half and full floor apartments spread over its 17 levels. The building’s three level penthouse, which will be marketed once construction is completed, includes a rooftop infinity pool, limestone paving and outdoor kitchen and is expected to fetch $15 million.

The majority of the apartments’ buyers are owner-occupiers, and with its prestige location and costly amenities (including marble laundry benches), there’s no doubt that Ceerose are pitching Eliza at the city’s luxury market.

Of the possibility that Eliza’s undulating design may alienate some buyers, Owen says that Sydneysiders are ready for risk taking architecture.

“I was in Melbourne on the weekend, and every project there is as exciting as Eliza,” said Owen.

“Buyers always choose good over ordinary. In Sydney, they’ve always been offered a boring box. But now we’re seeing that once they get offered the choice, they choose the more exciting designs.”

Owen says that demand for contemporary design is growing across the city.

“Now all the real estate agents are going to architects and saying, ‘Can you design something like Tony?’ because that’s what the buyers want. And we’re very excited about that, because it raises awareness about terrific design.”

Currently only two apartments in Eliza remain unsold. The full floor offerings are being marketed by Nigel Napoli and Irene Lau of Savills, with Richard Shalhoub and Hamish Robertson of McGrath.

As for the future, Owen says his practice has plenty on its plate, with residential, commercial and public projects underway.