Top 30 Architects and Developers, changing the way we live in Australia 2019
Architecture is an essential tool for social change and urban equality. When partnered with the right developers, architects can inspire a high level of community engagement, thus creating sustainable, human and environmentally focused spaces. With growth rising exponentially, we are seeing developments challenging the traditional urban plan.
Here is a list celebrating the prolific projects of the architects and developers who consciously make a social and environmental effort to change how we live, work, learn and play in Australia.
Architect - Fender Katsalidis
Project - Australia 108
Boasting the highest residences in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia 108 stands at 317 metres above the Melbourne skyline in a super tower fascinated world.
Sky high living isn’t anything new in Australia however it has never been more popular and highly contested. Australia 108 takes world class amenities and apartment standards to the next level.
Built mostly with Victorian materials which generate a sense of pride for the community.
The 12 story podium contains retail, hospitality and parking for residents and connects to the street level with vertical plants and overhanging native plant boxes on balconies, masking the pollution from cars within.
Living beyond the clouds comes at a cost however with the tallest penthouse in the southern hemisphere selling for $25 million dollars in mid 2018.
“The striking, sculptural design of Australia 108 is enhancing the Melbourne skyline and contributes to the city being recognised for its design of some of the tallest residential towers. The building, which features the gold starburst, shows how Australian-inspired design is reaching new heights.” - Craig Baudin, director of Fender Katsalidis.
ARCHITECT - Hayball
PROJECT - South Melbourne Primary School
Hayball has been instrumental in Australia’s development progress with the country’s first vertical primary school. South Melbourne Primary School rises six floors with a capacity for 525 students.
With learning neighbourhoods accommodating up to 75 students and three teachers at a time, SMPS separates itself from archetypal educational facilities by delivering collaborative and interactive spaces.
Learning can take place indoors or outdoors with plentiful gardens and terraces which involve students with their surroundings.
In 2018, Hayball won the GOV Design Awards for its consideration of materials, light, shadow, form, space and human interaction.
Located within the developing Fisherman’s Bend urban renewal precinct and with enrolment for the first year at capacity, it is clear that a school was beneficial for the area.
The school is also site for an early childhood development centre, a maternal and child health centre and with no fences around the property, Hayball collaborated with the City of Port Phillip to ensure the school integrated with a lively streetscape, giving students a feel of community and inclusion.
ARCHITECT - 3XN
PROJECT - QUAY QUARTER TOWER
The Quay Quarter Tower was designed by 3xn in collaboration with Arup and BVN to enable corporate change through an interaction between people and its surroundings in mind.
The former AMP tower which once stood on the site is being reduced to its skeleton, with two thirds of the building being retained, improvised and recycled to create 45,000sqm of new construction.
By doing this the construction process will save 10,000 Sydney to Melbourne flights in carbon emissions.
The tower has a 6 star energy rating with a five stacked rotated volumes between floors to act as sunshade whilst providing light on many of the terraces for workers and residents.
The Quay Quarter Tower truly sets a new standard for construction and how we live and work within the confines of a dense city and shows how much change we can implement for our environment on grand scales.
ARCHITECT - Woods Bagot
Short Lane, Surrey Hills
Inner city density can be quite stressful, which is why a development such as Short Lane in Surrey Hills is so important.
This environmentally and human friendly development aims to be a breath of fresh air in a sometimes suffocating environment with 22 apartments and bushy Cilandra and Periwinkle native plants overhanging the balconies.
Street frontage is activated by the engaged ground floor and a new laneway joining the existing built in 2017.
Short Lane is the winner of the 2019 INDE Multi-residential building award with its strong environmental agenda and sets a new standard for living in Australia.
"We were interested in the development connecting with its context in new ways by looking at the way urban nature can be experienced and woven into the city, with an emphasis on biophilia.
Biophilic design is beginning to boom because contact with nature is increasingly supported by research findings on its wellbeing benefits. It's both a basic human and universal need.” - Woods Bagot‘s global design leader, Domenic Alvaro.
ARCHITECT - Silvester Fuller
PROJECT - Table Cape, Tasmania
The proposed Table Cape resort hotel is set atop the deep cliffs on Tasmania’s north-west coast.
Table Cape when completed will be part landscape, part building as most of the complex is set below ground level, covered in a lush green landscape that blends the structure into its surroundings.
Nature and its surroundings were at the foundation of this project, with Silvester Fuller Architects collaborating with Aspect Studios including along with 50 luxury rooms, a function centre, a wellness spa, a village green and a farmers restaurant supplied with local produce.
The courtyards sink effortlessly between the roofscape as decks weave between short bodies of water, with balconies that protrude out over the cliff, immersing people into the natural beauty of the site.
ARCHITECT - Rothelowman
PROJECT - Neue Grand
Growland’s 20-story Neue Grand provides nineteen whole floor luxury apartments with cutting edge technology, developing the first of its kind in Australia, sky garages.
Residents of the tower will be able to park two luxury cars in their apartments regardless of floor number, behind a glass port extension of their open plan living and dining room.
With a German engineered automated parking system, licence plate recognition is provided to ensure safety for residents with tight measures in place for access to apartments including fingerprint recognition.
If more than one resident needs to use the lift, one side of the two sided lift service will be supplied to them without revealing the floor destination.
This is an Australian first in luxury and security.
“New technologies have allowed complex environmentally responsive elements to be synthesised into everyday architectural elements and systems.
Through a process that, we at Rothelowman, refer to as ‘humble innovation’ this new techno synthesis, has in turn allowed our designers to utilises vernacular methods to create sustainable and humane environments.
We believe in practicing with a ‘generous eye for life’ and seek to utilises every opportunity to materially improve our environments.” - Rothelowman Principal, Jonothan Cowle.
ARCHITECT - JOHN WARDLE ARCHITECTS
PROJECT - The Ian Potter Southbank Centre
John Wardle’s The Ian Potter Southbank Centre is the new home for the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.
Along with learning and rehearsal spaces, the cantilevered orchestral studio and 200 seat studio on the ground floor features bell-shaped portholes allowing passers-by to form a connection within.
The oculus window on the Ground floor is one of the largest in the world at six metres in height. The building has a 5 star green energy rating and was designed with people and how we interact in focus.
Accommodating for 1,000 students music students and over 6,000 from other faculties, The Ian Potter Southbank Centre’s design empowers music lovers, learners and teachers to engage, collaborate and discuss.
ARCHITECT - DKO ARCHITECTURE
PROJECT - BREESE STREET
Breese Street, Brunswick is a collaborative effort between DKO, Milieu and Breathe Architecture comprising of one, two and three bedroom apartments in a building that aspires to achieve a 7.5 energy star rating.
The development follows suit to the infamous Nightingale projects, providing the community with sustainable living options and a connection to nature like we haven’t seen before. Breese Street is no exception, with no more than four apartments per floor, neighbours are encouraged to interact with commune spaces and a rooftop garden.
The garden is a community vegetable plot, with beehives maintained by urban beekeeping collective Honey Fingers, not only providing residents with honey and sustaining new ecosystems, but teaching residents also.
Rainwater is redirected to garden irrigation while a compost area lowers food wastage. The roof of the development will accommodate a solar panel system, offering residents wholesale energy rates.
“The inception of Breese St was conceived by the implementation of two key critical value propositions, sustainability and community.
Sustainable principles are not only ethically important, but contribute to the comfort and amenity of residents. Community offerings shift medium density housing away from pure architectural propositions towards scenarios that allow and encourage residents to take ownership of their habitat and lifestyle.
We believe the future evolution and maturity of medium density housing in Australia requires the adaption of these measures in a mature and sophisticated model, becoming the norm rather than the exemplar. In needs to be inherent.” - Design Director Jesse Linardi
ARCHITECT - CLARKE HOPKINS CLARKE
PROJECT - BAPTCARE AGED CARE, LALOR
As the North Melbourne suburb of Lalor’s demographic dramatically changes over the next decade, architects such as Clarke Hopkins Clarke are instrumental and necessary to the way we live.
The Baptcare Aged Care facility will cater for the community with 120 beds and 135 independent living residences delivering much needed quality services, especially to those of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Lalor sits in one of the country’s fastest growing municipalities with 84 percent of people being over 50 in the next two decades and a population where over 38% of people were born overseas and speak another language other than English at home.
ARCHITECT AND DEVELOPER - PDG DESIGN x Bates Smart
PROJECT - QVM Residences
Queen Victoria Market residences represents a new wave of developmental practices shifting the focus from build-to-sell to Melbourne’s first build-to-rent due to an agreement between PDG and Mirvac.
With over 20,000 people calling the market precinct home in the new few years, the area is developing and revitalising quickly. The QVM project comprises of 420 apartments and is one of the first major developments to receive 6 green star communities accreditation due to the sustainable efforts of a renewed community hub, child care facilities and affordable housing.
Advantages of build-to-rent developments include longer term leaser to alleviate stress, low rents due to the long term nature of overall investment, centralised maintenance, minimal disruption from sole owners, increased sense of community with long term neighbours and community spaces.
ARCHITECT - FJMT - Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp
PROJECT - Bunjil Place
Short-listed this year for Best Public Building in the 2019 ALIA Library Design Awards amongst a plethora of architectural and design awards over the past two years, Bunjil Place has created a lively and much needed community space for people in Melbourne’s South.
A first of its kind for Melbourne, a library, community space, an outdoor plaza, function centre, gallery and a theatre all in one building, combining creativity, learning and entertainment.
The architecture and the name were inspired by stories of Bundjil by our First Nation People.
Built in The City of Casey, “There are also elements that are specific to each First Nation’s group that embed the story firmly into the vernacular of each tribe such as the species of eagle and the local topography Bunjil may inhabit.” - bunjilplace.com
ARCHITECT - MCBRIDE CHARLES RYAN
PROJECT - Banksia, Docklands
The Banksia Apartments in Docklands, Melbourne is a well designed structure that encourages healthy and active living through a sense of community with communal spaces such as the rooftop central park and lounge.
The building has substantial environmental practices such as using recycled rainwater runoff to water plants and garden beds, a facade that addresses heat gain, heat loss and general acoustics, smart sensors in communal areas to reduce energy usage when unoccupied and cyclist facilities to promote Melbourne’s expansive public transport system.
Banksia Apartments aims to achieve a 5 star Green Star Rating.
ARCHITECT - DBI DESIGN
PROJECT - Jewel, Gold Coast
With a design inspired by the crystalline hook of the Gold Coast’s iconic Hinterlands, Jewel is the first beach development for the city in 30 years and the largest beachfront mixed use development in Australia.
Designed by DBI Design, the three towers respond to the tropical climate by employing a sophisticated facade technology to ensure shading from the sun and shelter from the wind.
These technologies hope to deliver the complex a 5 Star Energy Rating.
The luxury development was presented with two International Property Awards 2016 for the Asia Pacific Region. The towers are a testament to the ever-growing Queensland economy and pressure to create mixed use environments.
“Jewel will be transformative for the Gold Coast as it will bring a new level of sophistication and innovation while creating the city’s largest and most diverse beachfront food and entertainment destination.” - Barry Lee of DBI Design.
ARCHITECT - SHoP Architects and Woods Bagot
PROJECT - Collins Arch
Collins Arch, designed by ShoP Architects in collaboration with Woods Bagot, revitalises a sleepy corner of the CBD into a 24 hour, lively community of offices, international W hotel, retail and residences on site.
The development will also bring Melbourne’s first public park in the Hoddle Grid since 1980.
Along with the 1900sqm of green space, each floor plate has been optimised to give back to the city with cascading balconies allowing sunlight to reach all parts of the building and private and public gardens.
Collins Arch is designed to achieve 5.5 star NABERS Energy rating for the premium grade commercial office space, a 4.5 star NABERS Energy rating for the W Hotel and a 7 star average NatHERS rating across the residential space. Architect and developer collaboration has proved beneficial and is increasingly more prevalent in our time with many providing sustainable mixed use developments with a focus of strengthening communities.
“In May 2014, SHoP’s collaboration with Woods Bagot won an international competition to design a landmark development. The project has been celebrated as the first true mixed-use development in Australia. Catalytically urban, public-spirited and fresh, Collins Arch will help complete the transformation of the surrounding area into a vibrant, around-the-clock community.” - Bill Sharples, SHoP Principal.
ARCHITECT - OMA + HASSELL
PROJECT - New Museum Western Australia
The New Museum of Western Australia, designed collaboratively by Hassell and OMA, is being developed with the philosophy of ‘People First.’
Celebrating the culture of Western Australia on a global stage, the project features a civic place for all people with a mix of heritage and modern architecture representing the past, present and the future.
Much of this project is what it means for the people, with the natural landscape reflected in the building’s design and a celebration of the integrated existing heritage buildings which hold significance to the people of Western Australia. The Museum aims to promote collaboration, engagement and responds to the needs of the community.
With 6000sqm of galleries and 1000sqm of space to stage large scale events and special exhibitions, the New Museum provides the community with much to inspire and creates a sense of pride for locals.
ARCHITECT - Breathe Architecture
PROJECTS - The Commons, Nightingale 1
We all know the environmental success that The Commons and Nightingale 1 projects brought to Australia in 2014, but what is more exciting is that it set a precedent of development that today is becoming more familiar to Australians, especially those in the suburbs of Melbourne.
The development is about sustainable urbanisation with spacious, light filled and affordable apartments enclosed in a sustainable shell that adds value to the community.
What is most impressive about The Commons is what’s inside, a diverse range of residents whose attitudes attitudes towards generosity and mingling thrive in communal spaces.
A sense of camaraderie and pride is shared amongst the residents of the Nightingale Housing project with a rooftop garden and achieving an 8 Star Green Rating.
Breathe has collaborated with the likes of Hayball, Kennedy Nolan, Clare Cousins and many more to deliver the future Nightingale Village with multiple structures applying the same, crucial tools to achieve sustainable urban living.
These developments are 100% fossil fuel free via an embedded energy network with water harvesting and productive gardens and affordability to all Australians.
The Commons and Nightingale are Australia’s answer to managing population growth in an environmentally and socially conscious way to which five years on, we can now see that it is a desirable development that works.
A shared solar energy network ensure every resident receives 100% green power.
ARCHITECT - BVN
PROJECT - 430 Pitt Street
430 Pitt Street is Voco Sydney Central Hotel’s newest location with a grand design by BVN Architects, the building sets a benchmark for hotel development in Australia.
The distinctive sloped vertical garden roof exists as a way to creatively navigate the restricted solar plane and protection from overshadowing Belmore Park to the south of the hotel.
Viewed from the park and surrounding buildings, BVN establishes 430 Pitt Street in its environment with climbing plants up a line of grid cables to create the vertical garden.
Stormwater management will reduce runoff from the roof surface, providing water quality and generating an urban ecology. This ecology will reduce urban heat and act as an additional insulation layer with species selected to suit the location and low water use.
ARCHITECT - Cox Architecture
PROJECT - The Conservatory
Cox Architecture’s Conservatory Apartment Tower was designed to tower above Melbourne CBD’s garden precinct with a configured sculptural form to maximise the number of apartments overlooking the Carlton Gardens with uninterrupted views. Curved to maximise optimal natural light, the tower is also extremely technologically advanced with environmental fins that modulate solar penetration.
Atop the tower is the masterpiece crown, housing PV Cells and Water harvesting measures as the building aspires for a 5 Star Green Star Rating.
With a sky club and rooftop garden and deck, residents from all 473 dwellings can mingle in the communal spaces. Cox Architecture have brilliantly created a socially and environmentally conscious tower which sets a precedent for how people live in modern Australia.
ARCHITECT - Chrofi
PROJECT - Maitland Riverlink
The space acts as a public living room connecting locals to the heritage Maitland river to which the town’s main street once turned its back on.
Devastating floods meant that locals no longer saw the river as an asset, but as a threat to the community. The precise angles of the warm clay brick walls act as a gateway and from afar, a window to the river peeking behind the town centre.
The Riverlink is now an integral part of the town, inviting for shade, mobile libraries, a place to sit and access to restaurants.
Chrofi won the 2019 Sulman award for architectural merit for the project.
“The architecture is intended to act as a civic set piece in a street full of great buildings. The design balances these architectural ambitions with consideration for the human scale.” - Chrofi
ARCHITECT - Bates Smart
PROJECT - Ivanhoe, Sydney
Bates Smart’s Ivanhoe development in Sydney of an existing underutilised housing estate of Macquarie Park is a new benchmark for how public housing communities can be built.
A school, retail precinct, aged care facility, new cycle routes and large amounts of green space frames Shrimptons Creek and conserves existing bushland by connecting residents to nature.
In collaboration with Plus Architecture, COX, Hassell, Turner and Candelapas, Bates Smart Architects deliver a complex social brief that tackles the reinvention of public housing and affordable precincts.
The project aims for ‘tenure blindness’ rendering the privately owned and social apartments unrecognisable to the community. This equality combined with communal space is integral to breaking social boundaries between residents and challenges injustices within our urban planning practices for the greater good of the people.
“Community input is essential to help us make a thorough and rigorous assessment and ensure potential impacts are fully considered.” - Anthea Sargeant, the Department of Planning and Environments.
ARCHITECT - Lyons Architecture
PROJECT - Cato Square
Prahran’s iconic Cato Square carpark is being revitalised into an active, vibrant public space to visit and enjoy. Stonnington residents are finally given a much needed green space to meet, mingle and support environment and local business. Lyons Architecture has designed a space for cultural programs and experiences with environmentally features in a safe and prioritised pedestrian environment.
The project aims to reclaim the public sphere and provide opportunities to enrich the livelihood of residents and visitors.
The current carpark is moving underground with 500 safe car spaces. Cato Square is an important development for inner city, densified suburbs to which corrects the wrongs of past urban planning with a car focus instead of an environmental and human focus.
ARCHITECT - Sekisui House
PROJECT - West Village, Brisbane
Sekisui House’s West Village is the beating heart of Brisbane’s CBD’s historic industrial precinct which is essentially made up from mini communities, allowing people to benefit from their surroundings whether its from mingling with other people, collaborating and being involved with nature. The master planned community has an Artist in Residence program, giving opportunities to local and national artists to be able to collaborate and flourish within the space.
Approximately 6500sqm of green space for markets, festivals and pedestrian retail laneways make up the development to improve community connection.
Along with GoGet car share for residents, 1,600 bicycle parking spaces and 500sqm for community, Sekisui House provides a deeply thoughtful and well rounded precinct that challenges traditional urban spaces. West Village is a development that brings community to the forefront and is leading how we plan mixed use precincts in Australia.
ARCHITECT - Cottee Parker
PROJECT - Queens Wharf Precinct
The Queens Wharf Precinct is a new urban mixed use development establishing Brisbane as a world class city. The project will transform a stretch of underutilised riverfront and restore, repurpose heritage buildings in celebration of the city’s past, present and future.
The precinct celebrates Indegenous and European heritage with interpretive trails expanding across the waterfront and providing connection to historic buildings, cultural sites, new towers comprising of apartments, casinos and hotels.
The riverline will have a new lease on life as under appreciated space is turned green and vital towards shaping the sustainable new community.
This precinct is the largest of many following suit around the country and with population booming like never before, accommodating for that growth has seen architects and developers such as Cottee Parker changing the standard of living.
ARCHITECT - Wilkinson Eyre
PROJECT - Crown Sydney
Wilkinson Eyre’s One Crown Sydney, stands 271 metres above the iconic and picturesque Sydney Harbour. The tower’s form emanates from three petals that twist and rise together with the views for hotel guests maximised by the sculptural shape.
As Sydney’s first six star hotel and the first landmark construction for the city in a decade, the tower represents a flourishing beacon towards a strong economic future.
Located in one of the country’s biggest urban renewal projects, Barangaroo, Crown Sydney is the crowning jewel. Barangaroo is Australia’s first large scale carbon neutral community which pioneers a new standard in sustainability, environment and job creation to which a great deal of respect for the land was at the forefront of the design process.
Over half the site is public space and the Wilkinson Eyre designed tower joins Smart buildings which aim for the highest in energy and water ratings with greatly efficient waste and water management.
ARCHITECT - Architectus
PROJECT - 100 Mount Street, Sydney
100 Mount Street is not only Sydney’s newest highrise office tower, it is an innovative and technologically advanced structure with high efficiency floor plates with a side core to maximise light and space.
Features of the office building include digital art with an LED wrapped core, glass enclosed fire stairs on every level and a highly transparent closed cavity facade with automated blind systems to reduce glare and expand light and visibility.
Targeting a 5 star Green Star Rating, NABERS Energy and Shell & Core WELL Gold Rating, 100 mount Street targets a diverse array of tenants with advanced environmental controls to regulate the comfort of workers.
Architectus in association with SOM Architecture, creates an evolved place of work with an environment and human focus at the core of its design, thus playing an integral role in shaping how Australian’s live and work.
ARCHITECT - Stewart Architecture
PROJECT - Green Square Library and Plaza
Stewart Architecture’s Green Square Library and Plaza is part of Australia’s largest urban renewal project that helps people connect to the emerging community structure.
Centred in Sydney’s Central Park, a suburb to which will be home to 48,000 people, Green Square Library redefines how we build libraries with iconic, innovative structures that poke above the surface as grand entrances to the community hub and facilities below.
In 2018, the library and plaza won the Architectural Review Library for its unity of contemporary library uses with community engaged activities and thoughtful surrounding which features circular sunken gardens with space for outdoor reading, children's activities and providing light for much of the below ground space.
Stewart Architecture defines a new wave of civic and public space with the importance of connecting communities to knowledge, opportunities and a shared environment.
ARCHITECT - Renzo Piano
PROJECT - One Sydney Harbour
The proposed final tower development for Barangaroo, designed by Renzo Piano consists of two apartment towers roughly 250 and 210 metres tall with a dominant location overlooking the Sydney Harbour. The towers have been conceived as crystals, with a highly transparent glass facade.
Renzo Piano is best known for such iconic landmarks as The Shard (London) and the New York Times Building (Manhattan) and now brings a classic new tower to the Sydney waterfront.
Floating between natural environments, One brings an ethereal feel for residents of the future apartment building and a level of luxury never seen before in Australia.
The most expensive penthouse is expected to sell for upwards of 118 million dollars, making it one of the most expensive properties in the Southern Hemisphere.
One sets a benchmark for luxury development in a growing economy.
Located in the exciting and vibrant neighbourhood of Barangaroo, One Sydney Harbour involves itself into respected and sustainable public domain with most of the site dedicated to pedestrian and greenery.
“One Sydney Harbour will be unique for the very simple reason that you live in the air, you live in the light, almost like being suspended between the water and the sky” - Renzo Piano
ARCHITECT - ELENBERG FRASER
PROJECT - IKEBANA Apartments
The Ikebana apartments designed by Elenberg Fraser is a medium-density building celebrating the artisanal detail of Japanese handcrafts, with a torn paper facade in streaks down the three building blocks and delicate screening.
Residents are enriched to communicate by sharing common spaces, with the rooftop featuring a teppanyaki grill, karaoke lounge, indoor and outdoor lounges with firepit, dining areas and lush sunken gardens between the buildings. Courtyards are integrated to initiate tranquility in a dense urban setting.
Sitting on a former industrial zone, Ikebana is an example of careful planning with a people-centric focus as the neighbourhood has been rezoned for the purpose of reaching its full potential to accommodate growth in a sustainable way.
“Built around courtyards that evoke the intense reflection of the famous Japanese rock gardens, and the ability to blend outdoor space with indoor – these central spaces offer respite from the urban surrounds, a place for contemplation.” - Ikebana Media Kit.
“Architecture is really about creating environments, in all of their manifestations.” - Callum Fraser, Director, Elenberg Fraser.