The high-level architectural plan for two slender towers rising 27 storeys high in Sydney’s North Shore won a recent design excellence competition for a new live-work precinct being developed by the Billbergia Group.
Designed by PBD Architects, the $170-million mixed-use development will cater to post-COVID hybrid and remote working needs. This is PBD’s first project with the Billbergia Group.
Bound by three street frontages on the northern most tip of Chatswood CBD, the site was subject to a former planning proposal, which established the general envelope. The new development proposes two towers comprising a total of 251 residential apartments, with 17% of the available GFA dedicated to non-residential uses including showrooms, childcare, fine grain retail and live/work SOHO units.
“An ensemble of slender tower forms shifts to address each prominent corner. Each pod has been carefully articulated to respond to environmental consideration through the use of materiality, detailing and architectural expression,” PBD Architects managing director Paul Buljevic said.
The permeability of the ground floor plane is reinforced with a double height N/S through-site link flanked by fine grain retail activation and offering access to a myriad of non-residential uses. An additional E/W link traverses the site, connecting the public realm to a landscaped corridor along the eastern edge.
The apartments are configured to optimise solar exposure and crossflow of breeze. Buyers will be offered a varied mix of apartment sizes and typologies with an abundance of resident amenity including communal facilities, external gym, sauna facilities, pool deck and rooftop terraces.
“This exciting new project will feature innovative live-work typologies and deliver critically needed new housing along with next-generation commercial spaces. It will be a dynamic, highly liveable, and activated precinct upon completion, one which adapts seamlessly to more flexible post-COVID working styles and the continued trend of working from home,” said Saul Moran, development director – planning and design at Billbergia.
