Sydney CBD's residential push continues with new Hyde Park dual-tower development plans
The push for residential towers on the fringe of Sydney's most central park continues.
Chinese-Australian billionaire Hui Wing Mao is the latest to file plans overlooking Hyde Park in the middle of the Sydney CBD.
Mao is aiming to demolish the two office towers at 175 Liverpool Street, which he bought for $390 million in 2014, and create two residential towers, which will home 289 apartments across both 118 metre buildings.
The Liverpool Street towers from Hyde Park. Image credit: Bates Smart
Mao, who heads the Shanghai-based Shimao Group, always had plans to redevelop the commercial space into apartments, with the proposal also set to include the renewal of the existing pocket park to the south of the site.
The two 36-storey mixed-use towers will be separated with a through site link and a newly developed public open space, in addition to over 11,000 sqm of retail and commercial space, which will be located in the lower six levels of the tower and in the basement.
Following the second-round deliberations, the Jury selected by unanimous vote the Bates Smart scheme as the winner.
The Jury praised the scheme for its more solid façade response, with the widened masonry frame providing additional depth in the façade, reducing the tendency for the project to appear as a dark, glazed box and improving its passive solar control.
The Bates Smart scheme sought to create a respectful and responsive building, designed to be a "quiet and calm” backdrop to the Anzac Memorial.
How the towers will look from Hyde Park. Image credit: Bates Smart
“Our aim is to build respectfully and quietly in the context of the War Memorial; neither replicating its materiality & detail, nor negating them, but rather being a responsible supporting element in the of composition with the Memorial, and a complimentary backdrop,” Bates Smart noted in their design application.
The scheme was also praised for its response to the ground plane, providing a successful through site link and Urban Room that responded to the wind issues on the site, and provided a useable space.
The Urban Room will incorporate an interpretative public artwork by Yhonnie Scarce, located off Liverpool Street, providing a connected, formal entry to the residential towers, as well as sheltered outdoor dining spaces and connection to the renewed pocket park.
“Scaled to respond to the War Memorial it honours the historic sequence of spaces on the Memorial axis by extending it across our site to Surry Hills.”
The proposed ground level retail space. Image credit: Bates Smart
Bates Smart said their primary intention was to respect the axial symmetry of the War Memorial and Hyde Park, which led them to design a pair of identifcal towers framing the Memorial Axis.
"To respect the primacy of the Memorial we designed a ‘quiet’ building free from visual distractions and unnecessary formal manipulation, that would not distract from the visual prominence of the memorial," the statement read.
"Finally, we have created a civic architecture that respects the formality of Memorial and the Hyde Park axis; and indeed Hyde Park itself, as one of Sydney’s greatest urban rooms.
"Recalling the War Memorial’s stately materiality and paired back simplicity, we developed a recessive palette of honed and polished precast concrete and brickwork, with bronze metallic detailing. Using the elemental simplicity of a column & lintel frame as a unifying language, the finishes adjust to the contrasting urban conditions.
"The frames vertical proportions reference the Memorial’s scale and proportions and the towers terminate on the skyline in an open air loggia, balancing the compositions symmetry in a civic celebration of Hyde Park’s axis."
Where the two office towers currently stand. Image credit: Bates Smart
There's been a boom over the last 12 months around the leafy Hyde Park, with the supply of prime new CBD apartments not keeping up with the demand.
Currently selling is 111 Castlereagh Street, which sits just off Hyde Park, and Castle Residences, down the road at the other end of the park.
In the last year there's been plans submitted by Deicorp for their redevelopment of the Polding Centre, and central element has plans for a $100 million, 53-apartment tower to replace the 16-level Hyde Park Inn Hotel.
Last year the alternative asset manager Fife Capital, led by Allan Fife, submitted plans for a 17-level tower to sit alongside a heritage-conscious redevelopment of the George Bosch Chambers and St James Hotel building that has stood since the 1920s.
The development of two lots, 114-120 Castlereagh Street and 139 Elizabeth Street, will see just 26 apartments built, only starting from level 10, with the rest of the building being commercial.