Brisbane architecture firm, Bureau Proberts is recruiting a new lighting concept for its next apartment project at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.

Jardino, is the name of the proposed 19-storey residential tower for 12 Hamilton Street, which will also feature distinctive round and rotating floorplates, and a multi-layered garden façade.

But while the building’s curved mass and climbing vertical garden will be unique for Kangaroo Point, it is design and technology seen before.

New to Australia will be Jardino’s façade lighting strategy which will provide a night time illuminated pattern for the building. It will recruit high powered multi-coloured LED units that can be pixel-mapped and controlled for large-scale matrix applications. The product is called Arcdot and has been developed by Czech Republic lighting giant Anolis, an architectural division of Robe.

Above: Jardino at night time
Right: The Anolis ArcDot is a Cree MC-E RGBW multichip based high powered multicolored LED fixture the can be pixel mapped and therefore be controlled and used for large scale matrix applications, as well as used for individual illuminating needs.

We’ve seen the Arcdot technology employed in Australia before, most recognisably on the revamped heritage-listed gasometer frame located at Brisbane’s Gasworks Plaza, but this will be the first time it will be used on a tower façade and on this scale in the country.

The architects referenced the Tower of Ring public sculpture in China as a source of inspiration for Jardino’s façade, and also hinted that its mapping could be operated to the match the patternation of the LEDs on the nearby Story bridge.

Top: The rejuvenated gasometer frame illuminated by a series of Anolis Arcdots. Above: The Tower of Ring by Eastern Design Office in full illumination. Photography by Koichi Torimura
Above: The Tower of Ring by Eastern Design Office in full illumination. Photography by Koicha Torimura

ANOTHER FIRST FOR KANGAROO POINT

While Jardino still has a way to go before it is approved by council, not least overcoming its exceedance of height restrictions, it could be a second first for Bureau Proberts on the Kangaroo Point peninsula.

The team is also behind the 14-storey apartment tower, Walan currently under construction on the Point which will lay claim to being the first Australian apartment building designed with a vertical forest of full-size trees and mature shrubs, emerging over two storeys.

Walan by Bureau Proberts

As sustainability expert, Steven King explains, a vertical forest differs from the more commonly seen green wall methodology (think One Central Park and Junglefy’s Breathing Wall) in that it uses larger trees that need substantial volumes of soil in which grow rather than a thin veneer of plants supported by a thinner scaffold of growing media in mats or pots.

The up side of this is that bigger plants can provide a hard-wearing, low-maintenance way to incorporate large ecological systems into a building which can contribute to reducing a city's urban island heat effect and pollution. Negatives include the extra load needed to be supported by the building’s structure, and the reduction in measurable occupied space for the building, both of which aren't typically welcomed by developers.

That said, while Walan could become a reference for future vertical forest buildings in Australia, Bureau Proberts doesn’t pretend to be employing the strategy for sustainability measures, but rather as a method of incorporating gardens akin to detached dwelling into a skyscraper.

The architects also used this justification for the more typical green wall design for Jardino which got its name from the French origin, jardin, meaning garden. Bureau Proberts sought to bring a living breathing garden to each level of the residential building which consists of 17 full floor three bedroom residential apartments.

Each level will have a planter irrigated with a centralised rainwater system harnessed in a rooftop water tank. Three types of local plants will grow from the planters and up a stainless-steel mesh façade and will blossom at certain times of the year.

Read Steven King’s informative post on the benefits of green walls and vertical forests here.

Nathan Johnson

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