Project
177 Pacific Highway
Architect
Bates Smart
Review by Sing d’Arcy Photography by Brett Boardman
Navigating stringent planning parameters and an erratic eastern boundary, this innovative commercial building by Bates Smart aims to set a new architectural standard for North Sydney. 96
Architecture Australia
Jul / Aug 2017
97
Photography Rodrigo Vargas
177 Pacific Highway
The sculptural north facade presents a sophisticated urban identity as a “gateway” to North Sydney. In order to satisfy overshadowing regulations, six-metre slices were “cut out” or “clipped onto” the tower’s eastern and western facades.
The exterior form of 177 Pacific Highway is “akin to a series of stacked boxes,” defying the irregular geometry of its prominent corner site.
98
Despite the eastern boundary that “jags in and out,” Bates Smart met the client’s brief for a rectangular floor plate.
Architecture Australia
Jul / Aug 2017
99
Photography Rodrigo Vargas
177 Pacific Highway
The sculptural north facade presents a sophisticated urban identity as a “gateway” to North Sydney. In order to satisfy overshadowing regulations, six-metre slices were “cut out” or “clipped onto” the tower’s eastern and western facades.
The exterior form of 177 Pacific Highway is “akin to a series of stacked boxes,” defying the irregular geometry of its prominent corner site.
98
Despite the eastern boundary that “jags in and out,” Bates Smart met the client’s brief for a rectangular floor plate.
Architecture Australia
Jul / Aug 2017
99
177 Pacific Highway
Key 1 Garden plaza 2 Cafe 3 Restaurant 4 Kitchen 5 Lift lobby 6 Void over garden plaza 7 Offices 8 Void 9 Terrace
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30 m
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30 m
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Level twelve floor plan 1:1000
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Level two floor plan 1:1000
Ten-metre-high glass walls ensconce the naturally ventilated garden plaza at street level, shielding it from traffic noise. Pacific Highway Section
Berry Street Section
Berry Street section 1:2000
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177 PACIFIC HIGHWAY Section 1:800 0
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40 m
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1
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Ground floor plan 1:1000
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5
10 m
Pacific Highway Section
Pacific Highway section 1:2000
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Architecture Australia
Berry Street Section 177 PACIFIC HIGHWAY Section 1:800
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20 m
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40 m
ambitions were complicated by a litany of state and Sixty years ago, Bates Smart and McCutcheon left local planning constraints that, while posing a design its mark on the North Sydney skyline with the challenge, would in the end give the building its MLC Building on Miller Street. This building was distinct massing and strong architectural presence. groundbreaking in Australia due to its innovative The highly visible corner site sits on the steel structural systems and its modular north-western edge of the North Sydney CBD, bounded double‑glazed facade. Beyond the technical by the Pacific Highway to the west and Berry Street advancement introduced with its construction, to the north, and forms the main northern gateway into its monumental presence within the urban fabric the area. The client was adamant that the building had of North Sydney and its uncompromisingly modernist to have a rectangular floor plate. This in itself is not an form made this glass‑box building an icon of unreasonable request, except that the site has what Australian architecture and an integral component Vivian describes as a “horrible geometry,” in particular of the identity of North Sydney. Now Bates Smart the eastern boundary that jags in and out erratically. has the opportunity to reshape the skyline it helped create with 177 Pacific Highway, a commercial project Superimposed on the client’s expectations of maximizing lettable floor area were the state‑legislated that could be considered just as innovative as its overshadowing prohibitions relating to the morning predecessor, though designed within a set of very overshadowing of the Don Bank Museum to the different parameters. south-west and the afternoon overshadowing of the The 1957 MLC Building set a promising tone Miller Street precinct to the south-east. Twelve months for the quality of the architecture that would drive of modelling was undertaken on the tower design the development of North Sydney as Sydney’s second to find an optimal solution that met the conditions commercial district, yet the steam seemed to quickly of both the client and the NSW Department of Planning run out of this initiative and with intervening decades and Environment. After two years of negotiation with of architectural mediocrity, it was not until 2010 that Rice Daubney’s Ark building shook up the architectural the state government, consent was given. The strategy that Bates Smart used was to conceive of the tower status quo. When Bates Smart was approached as a series of vertical slices that could be “cut out” to undertake the design of 177 Pacific Highway, the or “clipped on” in order to meet the parameters. architects took the opportunity to revisit the legacy The thickest slice was the central floor plate, limited of their earlier landmark and create a new paradigm by the sixteen-metre intercolumnar span. This for development in the area. Bates Smart director rectangular volume formed the central spine. To this, Philip Vivian saw the potential for this project to set six-metre slices to the east and west could be “added a new architectural standard for North Sydney. These Jul / Aug 2017
101
177 Pacific Highway
Key 1 Garden plaza 2 Cafe 3 Restaurant 4 Kitchen 5 Lift lobby 6 Void over garden plaza 7 Offices 8 Void 9 Terrace
9
30 m
7
30 m
0
6
Level twelve floor plan 1:1000
7 6
8
0
6
Level two floor plan 1:1000
Ten-metre-high glass walls ensconce the naturally ventilated garden plaza at street level, shielding it from traffic noise. Pacific Highway Section
Berry Street Section
Berry Street section 1:2000
4
177 PACIFIC HIGHWAY Section 1:800 0
8
40 m
3
1
5
2
Ground floor plan 1:1000
0
5
10 m
Pacific Highway Section
Pacific Highway section 1:2000
100
Architecture Australia
Berry Street Section 177 PACIFIC HIGHWAY Section 1:800
0
10
20 m
0
8
40 m
ambitions were complicated by a litany of state and Sixty years ago, Bates Smart and McCutcheon left local planning constraints that, while posing a design its mark on the North Sydney skyline with the challenge, would in the end give the building its MLC Building on Miller Street. This building was distinct massing and strong architectural presence. groundbreaking in Australia due to its innovative The highly visible corner site sits on the steel structural systems and its modular north-western edge of the North Sydney CBD, bounded double‑glazed facade. Beyond the technical by the Pacific Highway to the west and Berry Street advancement introduced with its construction, to the north, and forms the main northern gateway into its monumental presence within the urban fabric the area. The client was adamant that the building had of North Sydney and its uncompromisingly modernist to have a rectangular floor plate. This in itself is not an form made this glass‑box building an icon of unreasonable request, except that the site has what Australian architecture and an integral component Vivian describes as a “horrible geometry,” in particular of the identity of North Sydney. Now Bates Smart the eastern boundary that jags in and out erratically. has the opportunity to reshape the skyline it helped create with 177 Pacific Highway, a commercial project Superimposed on the client’s expectations of maximizing lettable floor area were the state‑legislated that could be considered just as innovative as its overshadowing prohibitions relating to the morning predecessor, though designed within a set of very overshadowing of the Don Bank Museum to the different parameters. south-west and the afternoon overshadowing of the The 1957 MLC Building set a promising tone Miller Street precinct to the south-east. Twelve months for the quality of the architecture that would drive of modelling was undertaken on the tower design the development of North Sydney as Sydney’s second to find an optimal solution that met the conditions commercial district, yet the steam seemed to quickly of both the client and the NSW Department of Planning run out of this initiative and with intervening decades and Environment. After two years of negotiation with of architectural mediocrity, it was not until 2010 that Rice Daubney’s Ark building shook up the architectural the state government, consent was given. The strategy that Bates Smart used was to conceive of the tower status quo. When Bates Smart was approached as a series of vertical slices that could be “cut out” to undertake the design of 177 Pacific Highway, the or “clipped on” in order to meet the parameters. architects took the opportunity to revisit the legacy The thickest slice was the central floor plate, limited of their earlier landmark and create a new paradigm by the sixteen-metre intercolumnar span. This for development in the area. Bates Smart director rectangular volume formed the central spine. To this, Philip Vivian saw the potential for this project to set six-metre slices to the east and west could be “added a new architectural standard for North Sydney. These Jul / Aug 2017
101
177 Pacific Highway
or subtracted” as the building went up. This ensured that a regular rectangular floor plate was replicated on each floor and that the plates varied only where modelling determined that overshadowing would occur. Vivian says that without the aid of complex computer modelling systems, 177 Pacific Highway could not have gone ahead. “It created the largest floor plates without overshadowing.” Had a standard rectangular tower been proposed, it would not have been profitable given the reduced height limits imposed to comply with the overshadowing conditions. This project is a prime example of how sophisticated modelling can be used in contemporary architectural practice to resolve highly complex scenarios. With planning hurdles overcome, the next issue was how to make compositional sense of the building’s exterior. At thirty storeys, with 1,500-square‑metre-net-lettable-area floor plates, this was never going to be a svelte tower, nor a simple architectonic resolution. The strategy of the tower’s “cut-outs” and “clip-ons” in effect resulted in a massing of the tower that was akin to a series of stacked boxes. Vivian explains that in order to reduce the potential boxiness of the tower, the facade expression became “lighter and lighter” over various design iterations. The northern facade of the central slice uses horizontal banding to differentiate itself from the “clip-ons” to the east and west. Literal expression of the structure and facade is suppressed in favour of compositional licence to create balance on the northern facade and north-western corner, as these form the visual identity of the North Sydney “gateway.”
At street level this “gateway” function is recognized with an interior urban plaza, conceived as a public space in an unusual gesture towards improving the urban condition of North Sydney. Surrounded by ten-metre-high glass walls, the garden plaza is naturally ventilated, brightly lit and shielded from the traffic noise outside. The space is well planned and the varied cross-section creates movement and interest at floor level and in the ceiling. However, the plaza would have benefited if its palette had been less “neutral and public” and more aligned with creating the feel of an urban room. As with all innovation, future iterations will build on earlier models and find an appropriate design language and response for this new type of large-scale interior urban space. Vivian describes the challenge that Bates Smart put to itself as: “Can you design a major building that has minimal impact on the public domain and creates public amenity?” In this case, the answer would have to be yes. While the MLC Building was a major building of its time and highly innovative architecturally, its relationship with its urban and social contexts could be heavily critiqued. The legacy of 177 Pacific Highway within the annals of architectural history has yet to be written; however, it has proved innovative in a different way from its predecessor, embodying the value we now place on the importance of the public domain and public amenity. — Sing d’Arcy is a senior lecturer in interior architecture at the University of New South Wales.
Louvred wall to plant room Atrium skylight Natural ventilation exhaust 1,000-mm-high cantilevered glazing 40-mm-diameter ceiling rods allowing natural ventilation Aluminium curtain wall framing nominal 1,500-mm module centres spanning height of podium
Cladding zone for electrical services and feature lighting Natural ventilation intake grille to perimeter of podium Single-glazed awning with steel T-bar support rafters External light fittings and security systems within mechanical grille zone Ground-floor podium glazing – clear toughened laminated glass with welded steel T mullion Continuous trimless linear bar grille and trench system to podium facade perimeter
Facade detail Not to scale
Architect Bates Smart; Project team Philip Vivian, Basil Richardson, Brad Dorn, Tommy Sutanto, Sahar Koohi Sandwith, Tommy O’Daly, Nicola Kwong, Eamon Harrington, Jung Soo Kim, Nikolay Pechovski, Matt Davies, Tonie Maclennan, Amelia Donald, Dan Layden, Adam Fryett, Brady Gibbons; Engineer Arcadis; Services consultant Inhabit Group, Philip Chun; Electrical, services, acoustic and ESD consultant AECOM; Landscape consultant Aspect Studios; Project manager Leighton Properties
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Architecture Australia