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Brookfield Place Sydney is a new precinct in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, transforming Wynyard into a world-class precinct with a modernised transportation hub, premium-grade office facilities, multiple levels of retail stores and dining experiences, and a revitalised Carrington Street.
The precinct brings together the heritage Shell House building, 285 George Street and 10 Carrington Street – a 27-level premium grade commercial tower, and a significant upgrade to Wynyard Station’s George Street entrance creating a modern hospitality and retail destination and a new standard for workplace design.
Our relationship with the precinct began in 2012 as technical advisors when the City of Sydney held a design excellence competition to reimagine the precinct. Since then, we have collaborated with competition winners MAKE and Architectus, Brookfield Properties, and their construction contractor Multiplex to realise this project from concept to completion.
We provided engineering services for the precinct, including building services, environmentally sustainable design, façade design, specialist lighting design, vertical transportation, fire engineering, security design, and pedestrian planning. We also supported the restoration of Shell House through structural peer review and façade diagnostic services.
Project Summary
27storeys premium grade commercial tower
6Star Green Star design rating
3levelsof hospitality experiences
Connecting old with new
A significant element of this project was restoring Sydney’s iconic clock tower, the historic Shell House building and creating a ground level and rooftop hospitality destination with office floors in between. The repurposed office floors uniquely connect to the office tower floors, creating expansive office floor plates across old and new buildings.
We worked closely with the structural engineer and design team to enable the interconnected floor plates to connect the office tower with Shell House via a dramatic atrium. We needed to solve complex comfort and façade challenges to unite the old and new floors.
Then, supporting the refurbishment of Shell House, we restored the façade and delivered fire engineering, building services and lighting design for the hospitality fit out, contributing to a world-class dining and entertainment destination.
Sustainable sun-tracking façade
Key to attracting the right anchor tenant for this precinct was creating an adaptable and attractive place fit for the future workforce, maximising daylight, and minimising solar gain via the façade.
Using thermal analysis and modelling, we explored different façade systems that could mitigate solar gains while maintaining visible light transmission and daylight.
We designed a unique system that uses an internal automated reflective roller blind with an internally ventilated cavity between the blind and the interior glass panes. The blinds operate automatically on a solar control programme tracking the sun's position relative to the façade throughout the year, considering the overshadowing of nearby structures.
Image ©Karl Schwerdtfeger
This design helped achieve a 6 Star Green Star – Office As Built v3 certification by the Green Building Council of Australia and is now targeting an ambitious 5.5-star NABERS Energy rating.
“This vibrant precinct is a new standard of what we can achieve through building meaningful relationships with our clients and collaborators, working together with a shared vision and purpose to enable elegant design solutions and the ultimate successful delivery of a world-class precinct. ”
Cameron Dymond Project Director
Coordinating complex station interfaces
Sitting directly on top of the Wynyard Station Transit Hall, the office tower and station share many interfaces, including building services to enable seamless pedestrian movements, comfort and fire safety.
Designing an interface between these spaces was both constrained and complex, requiring sophisticated smoke modelling and careful design coordination.
As an authorised engineering organisation (AEO), we are one of a select group of organisations that could deliver these critical design services for Transit Hall on behalf of Brookfield and Multiplex to the satisfaction of Transport for NSW.
Image © Aran Anderson Photography
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