A level of detailing true to Foster. An
otherwise dull building is greatly enlivened with a fantastic glass lift
core.
DEUTSCHE BANK PLACE
A new commercial tower by Foster and Partners with Hassell responds
to changing work patterns with large, flexible floor plates and a
dramatic atrium.
REVIEW Philip Vivian
PHOTOGRAPHY Richard Glover
Panoramic view of
Sydney towers from The Domain, with Deutsche
Bank Place in the centre.
Elevated view of the
tower as seen from the west. The structural
system is seen on the facade as a three-storey,
V-shaped chevron superstructure.
The “assembly” as
seen through the glass facade. Fifteen metres
high, this grand plaza aims to contribute to the
public life of the city.
Looking across the
assembly, with its linear water feature, to the
lobby.
Retail tenancies
animate the assembly space.
View of the dramatic
atrium and the lift lobby.
Looking up into the
atrium space and at the glass lifts.
Rapid advancements in information
technology have given rise to new work styles, and companies
have had to adapt their management methods to remain
competitive. As a consequence, contemporary management culture
is more dynamic and less hierarchical. The new flatter work
culture requires teamwork, creating an increased emphasis on
social and informal interaction between workers.
These changing work styles have influenced office building
designs since the late 1980s, resulting in demand for a new type
of work space. Typically this means large floor plates
unobstructed by columns and services. These deep floor plates
are often associated with strategically placed atria that
introduce light onto the floors as well as creating focal points
for vertical circulation and to encourage interaction between
workers.
London’s Foster and Partners has been a leader in the
exploration of innovative designs for office buildings since the
inception of the practice, commencing with the Willis Faber and
Dumas Headquarters (1971–1975) in Ipswich, moving to high-rise
projects such as the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Headquarters
(1979–1986) in Hong Kong and the Commerzbank Headquarters
(1991–1997) in Frankfurt, and culminating in their current
series of high-rise towers that includes Sydney’s Deutsche Bank
Place at 126 Phillip Street (1996–2005), Swiss Re Headquarters
in London (1997–2004), and the yet-to-be-completed Hearst
Headquarters (2000–2006) in New York. Collectively these
buildings have challenged the dominant office building typology
of the central core high-rise, with typically undifferentiated
floor plates. In its place Foster has explored the humanization
of the workplace by organizing the building into a series of
“vertical villages” through the introduction of sky gardens and
social spaces such as atria. These buildings show signs of a
consistent set of architectural themes, including the expression
of external vertical circulation cores, the use and expression
of innovative structural solutions, the use of natural
ventilation and day lighting to reduce energy consumption, and
the creation of public spaces at the base of buildings to
integrate them into the public realm of their respective cities.
It was this lineage that attracted the developer, Investa
Property Group (formerly Principal Office Fund), to Foster and
Partners when in 1996 it consolidated the site for a new premium
high-rise office building in Sydney, at 126 Phillip Street.
Their selection followed a world tour to visit a shortlist
of international architects that included Helmut Jahn, Skidmore
Owings and Merrill, and Cesar Pelli & Associates. The selection
of Foster and Partners was based on the firm’s rational approach
to architectural design, due to the client’s belief in “driving
the value of a building through its functionality”, which Chris
Wagett, Principal’s project director, describes as “being able
to be flexible and adaptable, with all elements, including
structure, aligning with a planning module … to maximize its
efficacy, or effectiveness, not simply its efficiency.” Foster
and Partners project architect Sven Ollmann summarizes the brief
to the architects as “to create the most efficient floor plate
Australia has ever seen”.
Foster and Partners were aware of the
information-technology-based shift in work styles calling for
large, flexible floor plates that create spaces for people to
interact. The concept of the open floor plate, however, “evolved
through the design process”, recalls Foster and Partners
director David Nelson, and underwent “rigorous design
comparisons and checking to ensure its financial viability”. The
design concept resulted from the site’s long and narrow
dimensions, which were too narrow for a traditional central core
building. The design places 64-metre-long-by-21-metre-wide floor
plates to the east of the site. In a move of structural bravado
the 21-metre widths are made in a single span, eliminating
columns from the floor plate completely. This span is
unquestionably the largest column-free span for any office
building in Australia, and redefines column-free space for
premium office buildings. To stand on the floor plate and look
from one end to the other, over 1,200 square metres in a single
column-free area, is breathtaking and a feature that is clearly
appealing to tenants.
To achieve this unencumbered floor plate the core has been
placed on the west side of the site, remote from the floor
plate, where it provides solar protection to the main office
areas. The concept of a detached side core is not new to office
buildings, having its precedents in Skidmore Owings and
Merrill’s 1958 Inland Steel Building in Chicago as well as
Australia’s ICI House in Melbourne by Bates Smart & McCutcheon
from the same year. What is innovative about the Foster concept,
however, is the introduction of a full-height atrium between the
core and floor (the tallest in the Southern Hemisphere) and the
use of scenic glass lifts. The atrium allows light to penetrate
the floor on all sides, creating what could be described as the
ideal floor plate – column-free, totally unencumbered by
services, and with light and views on all sides. A ride in the
glass lifts gives the surreal sensation of gliding vertically up
through the city on one side, while on the other flying past
office floors on the outside of the building.
The lift core is situated directly on the street boundary
without the usual podium and setback required by the City of
Sydney’s imitation of New York’s contextual zoning laws. This
configuration had promised to demonstrate how to successfully
integrate a contemporary tower into the city without a podium,
enlivening the street with the mechanical ballet of the lifts.
Unfortunately, the use of a dark glazing to the lift core all
but hides the constant lift movement during the day and leaves
an unwelcoming street-level experience.
The lack of a significant structural core as well as its
offset location created an interesting challenge in achieving
lateral stability for the building. The solution was a composite
structure whereby the tower columns and floor plates have been
designed as a braced frame, which acts together with the core to
create the lateral stability. The architects have expressed this
unusual structural system on the facade as a three-storey,
V-shaped chevron superstructure. The chevron profile creates a
play of light and shade that accentuates the superstructure,
giving the building a muscular and honest aesthetic, in contrast
to the curvaceous skin of Renzo Piano’s nearby Aurora Place.
The superstructure continues above the building to create
a roof feature in the form of a triangulated exoskeleton, the
angle of which is dictated by the solar access plane to Martin
Place. The original concept was for the roof element to contain
a glazed biosphere with plants to cleanse and recycle air from
the building. This would have incorporated another Foster theme
of integrating sky gardens into their buildings; however, it was
eliminated to meet the cost plan and, ironically, to comply with
the City of Sydney’s regulations for roof features, leaving the
building with a hollow and meaningless gesture on its roof. The
superstructure and roof feature do, however, create a
distinctive skyline profile for the building, giving it more
presence than its modest 31 levels would otherwise have allowed,
as well as creating a transition in scale between the towers at
the northern end of the city and the lower-scale buildings
around Martin Place.
The tower’s facades consist of expressed mullions that
give vertical emphasis to the building’s proportions. However,
the vertical expression is not simply an aesthetic preference
created by a “clip-on” section. In this case a customized
extrusion was made to allow the mullion to be externalized, thus
maximizing the usable internal area. Despite this specialist
component, it is unfortunate that the facades do not respond to
the Australian climate, being unshaded and undifferentiated by
their orientation.
At ground level a 15-metre-high covered plaza, known as
the “assembly”, has been created beneath the tower, resulting
from Foster and Partners’ belief that “buildings should
contribute to the public life of a city”. The space is lined on
one side with retail tenancies, and on the other with the office
lobby.
A raised linear water element runs centrally down the
length of the space to separate the two uses.
While admirably open and public, and becoming more active
as retail tenancies open, this space is always likely to suffer
from a lack of direct sunlight.
This building is not a typical Foster design documented in
London. While Foster and Partners was the lead architect,
responsible for the concept/schematic design and design
development (jointly), there was a large Australian team whose
skills contributed to the realization of the concept.
Of particular note are Hassell, who was the collaborating
architect, responsible for the town planning approval and all
phases following the shared design development; and Bovis Lend
Lease, who was in charge of the project management and
construction of the building, as well as the structural design,
and was integral to achieving a solution that met with both the
approval of Foster and Partners and the cost parameters of the
project.
While the clarity and rigour of the concept, the
structural bravura and expression, the public space and the
expressed vertical circulation are all Foster trademarks, some
other aspects of the design feel compromised. It is particularly
disappointing that the building, as a result of value
engineering, has not incorporated the innovative environmentally
sustainable approaches that we have come to expect from the
Foster team. The building’s strength, however, is the
reinvention of the detached side core building typology with a
remote core and full-height atrium for the information age. As a
result, Deutsche Bank Place is a new benchmark for commercial
floor space in Australia, and has achieved the client’s aim of
the most effective floor plate in Australia.
PHILIP VIVIAN IS A SYDNEY-BASED ARCHITECT AND A DIRECTOR OF
BATES SMART.
DEUTSCHE BANK PLACE, SYDNEY Architect Foster and Partners—project team Norman
Foster, David Nelson, Gerard Evenden, Sven Ollmann, Muir
Livingstone, David Crosswaite, Arthur Branthwaite, John Blythe,
Dirk Henning Braun, Daniela Dähn, Glenis Fan, Alfredo de Flora,
Fleur Hutchings, Edmund Klimek, Thomas Lettner, Fiona McLean,
Alex Morris, Paul Morris, Carsten Mundle, Ross Palmer Daniel
Pittman, Caroline Rabourdin, Eva Siebmanns, Nick Sissons, Carmel
Thomas. Collaborating architect and landscape architect
Hassell. Project manager and construction Bovis Lend Lease.
Structural engineer Lend Lease design, Arup. Quantity
surveyor Rider Hunt Australia. Mechanical and electrical
engineering Norman Disney Young, Lincoln Scott, Roger
Preston and Partners. Fire engineering Stephen Grubits
and Associates. Vertical transportation consultant Norman Disney
Young. Facade consultant Arup. Client Investa
Property Group. Principal tenant Deutsche Bank Australia
