charm

Some old world charm. Taken from Sydney Town Hall, pre-function chamber.

 

beam me up

This light can be found walking the concourse level at Greenwood Shopping Plaza in North Sydney. We designed the ceilings late 2012 to use environmentally friendly materials, like the Plywood louvres that shape to form a curving spine at the centre. The futuristic lights are located at key entries to the mall and were developed with Phillips Lighting and Barrisol.

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a brighter greenwood

The new ceiling and lighting treatment at Greenwood Shopping Plaza is nearly complete. The design looked at creating an artificial atrium light, similar to the existing glass atriums at the centre, where you see the branches of large trees located at the roof deck. 

The lighting is connected to a computer system allowing the light to the "birds nest" to change colour or work on a programmed loop of colours.

The design by Crone Partners, is gaining positive response from shoppers and retailers alike, who are encouraging modernisation of the dated centre. 

a stair with bling

 



If you are not aware of who Austereo is, they are a radio station company, worth nearly $700m and responsible for two major radio stations brands, MMM and 2Day FM.

 

Austereo is located at the World Square site in Sydney and moved to these premises in 2006. The building, is located at the corner of George Street and Goulburn Streets, at the Western end of George Street, near China Town. At World Square you can find commercial offices, residential  apartments and retail uses, surrounding a central public plaza space.

Crone Partners, designed the World Square Master Plan and were invited to design an interconnecting stair in the Austereo Fitout and a rooftop amenities area. The works included; a stair that connected 3 levels of the tenancy, glass lift, toilets and kitchen provisions, as well as a multi-purpose room on the rooftop, that could be used for special events.

 

The interconnecting stair provides a space where employees can interact in a dynamic environment. The steel stair uses a steel channel stringer and balustrades, set-out perpendicular to the stringers. Patch fitting connect the glass to the balustrades and a 50mm diam Stainless Steel handrail borders the edges. The treads are finished with a dark grey rubber finish and set in a Stainless Steel pan, that spans between the stringers creating a clean and simple soffit. The colour wall to the side of the stair is a feature of the space. The wall is made from Barrisol and the lighting is connected to a computer system, allowing the colour's to change on demand or on a loop system. The "communication" stair encourages people to use the stair to travel between floors, instead of using the lift. Eco friendly! 

 

The total Fitout costs for the project was approx. $10m.

  

 

 

 

pearl river commercial tower china

Crone Partners worked on the Design Competition for a commercial office tower in China, with a local firm based in Guangzhou, named IAPA. Unfortunately we did not win the project but the experience, designing a major tower in the city and travelling to Guangzhou was memorable.

The project was run by the Guangdong Tobacco Company. Considering the project promoted good Environmental Sustainable Design it seemed a little strange to be working for a Tobacco Company client.
The project was located in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, near to the Pearl River, about 120km North West of Hong Kong. Guangzhou is known as a key transportation hub and trading port for the country of China.

The concept was based on the idea of duality. A situation prevalent in nature, having 2 states, that are complimentary or opposed to each other. The idea of duality is clear in the massing of the tower, the relationship between solid and void, lightness & darkness, private versus public spaces and the clear separation between vehicular and pedestrian movements.

The project is made up of a 68 storey, commercial office tower, with convention centre facilities, restaurants and speciality retail outlets. Four levels of basement car parking are located below ground, including a loading dock and a combination of stackable and conventional car parking spaces, to maximise efficiency and minimise basement excavations, due to the water table. The total GFA for the project is 170,185m2.

The 290m tall tower is orientated towards park views and desirable, southerly aspect, for warm winter sun access.

The tower project was designed using Environmental Sustainable Design principles to minimize the energy consumption of the building and to conserve water usage. A combination of passive and active environmental strategies was used in the areas of; Energy, Water, Transportation, Land Use and Ecology, Indoor Environmental Quality, Management, Materials and Emissions.

I like the photo below of the "little" model we had made for the competition.

 

2 shots of the arya residences

The photographs below, are off the Arya Residences in Fort Bonifacio, Philippines. The building is still under construction and we (Crone Partners Architects), designed it back in 2010. Arya is a twin tower, residential development targeting LEED gold and Berde, green building ratings. The first residential building in the Philippines, to have such high aspirations for environmental design.

I have cheated a little with the photograph, using filters in Instagram, but I like the wispy clouds and colours in the first photograph and the grey grain of the balcony detail in the second image.