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A 15-storey commercial tower footed by a refurbished art deco podium has been approved for development at Central Park, Sydney by NSW Planning.
Tower 4N by Foster + Partners and PTW Architects will house a new childcare centre, office space, 48 residential apartments, 283 hotel rooms and 121 car parking spaces.
The tower addition will hover over the heritage listed façade of the Australian Hotel to the west, courtesy of some rather large transfer supports, and will be defined by three distinctive tower elements that are characterised by their geometry.
The façade treatment of the eastern Hotel Tower (left) creates a stacked box effect, courtesy of the metal profiles around each individual hotel unit, fit with infills of different glass systems (clear, textured and glass shadow boxes).
The Second zone is the western Office and Childcare Tower (right), characterised by curved corners and continuous, horizontally-profiled, lightweight cladding elements which form a solid upstand and are a nod to the Australian Hotel’s art deco curves below.
The third and last zone, which houses the residential units (right-top and below), is based on the design intended for the residential facades of Block 1 and features horizontal spandrel fines, louvered sliding panels and horizontal transoms. Both massing elements will share a recessed neckline that will run around the entire building at the City Datum line.
Two main colours will be used for all principle façade elements; A light gun metal grey will be used for the custom profile metal extruded / radiused cladding, and a dark grey will be used for the mullions / transoms and all horizontal shading or louvered façade elements. The glass type will be double glazed units with a very light grey neutral low E coating.
Within the building massing, a residential Atrium has been designed to provide an outdoor break-out space for residents. This atrium is covered by a permanently open roof pergola which allows unobstructed views towards the sky.
The project aims to follow a 5 Star Green Star Pathway but the building is not fully eligible for a rating under this system as it falls out of the classification system.
Below is a summary of the key sustainability measures courtesy of Foster+Partners:
A key feature of the energy efficient design is the passive control of solar loads on the facade. Through appropriate facade design, peak loads on mechanical systems are reduced, allowing a reduction in the required capacity of plant and a reduction in annual energy demands.
This is achieved by adopting a “ribbon window” system rather than floor-to-floor glazing which attracts significantly higher energy demands. As well as reducing the impact of direct solar gains greater thermal comfort is delivered with the reduction of the radiant impact of solar gain on the occupants. Furthermore, daylight access is maximised by the high VLT (visual light transmittance) of the glazing specified and the penetration of diffuse daylight to a significant portion of the floor plate Podium, Neck and Top-of-building facades are provided with full height vision glazing.
Horizontal shading elements have been incorporated to reduce the solar load in these areas. At the ground plane metal awnings provide shading of the retail units. Similarly, on the upper levels of the podium, horizontal shading elements and the high performance glazing selection control solar gain and admit daylight. High performance double glazing has been selected for these areas.
Reflectivity of the facade to the street has been taken into consideration and this will be further investigated during the next design stages.
