Jury citation
North Quay deftly balances institutional investment and public good to bring joy and usefulness to the city. With a single strategy – lifting the building above the street – the project creates a new space for Brisbane. This new city room gives scale to the city and brings civic quality to the project. It establishes a forecourt where none exists and provides space to enable place to be revealed. It is opportunistic of the very best kind and injects a sense of hope and vision that is needed as our cities densify. This new interstitial space invites the best of the city in, while providing shade and protection that fosters the everyday encounters that build collective memory.
The sequence to enter the building is performative, inviting daily promenade amplified by public offerings of performance (via a new public lecture hall), chance meeting and spectacle. The softness of the building’s colour talks to the Australian landscape – bleached ochre rendering a soft pink that holds light while softening contrasts. The brilliance of this project rests in its simplicity. The commercial office plates are uniform and simple, injected across the height of the building with communal terraces. Northern heat is protected through the placement of the core, while glazing is shaded by elliptical rings that adjust according to orientation to cast shadow. The rooftop provides a whole-of-building outdoor meeting place of palatial vertical scale that you can envy from the other side of the river. While much of the building accommodation is beyond the reach of the public, the new ground level public room with the elevated lobby cafe overlooking the “square” is a great place to watch the city and enjoy the coolth. This is Brisbane at its very best – innovation through architecture to deliver experiences for people that engage and embrace the environment.
The project is 100 percent electric, provides a suite of wellness opportunities for tenants, elevates bicycle commuting to first class and establishes a ground level urban pattern that accommodates future adjoining development. There is joy in this project – it invites calmness in your mind and brings a smile to your face.
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Read Sheona Thomson’s review of 205 North Quay here.