126 Phillip Street, Sydney

Sydney’s newest tower features some of the world’s most intelligent glazing technology to help achieve its lofty ambitions.

High-rise towers are what help define most cities. Foster and Partners is one of the biggest names in world architecture and when they come to town plenty of people sit up and take notice. 126 Phillip Street, Sydney, represents one of the millennium’s new generation energy and space efficient models. A radical floor plan and energy sharp glazing program create a building tuned to the 21st century.

Foster is one of the very best at stripping flab to create an extraordinary level of definition and performance from the body corporate. The local headquarters for principal client Deutsche Bank appears conventional enough externally, but it is inside where the cool, elegant drama unfolds. A vast glazed forecourt/assembly area is the prelude to a soaring atrium that incorporates a battery of rapid response glass lifts. Lead architect Foster and project team Hassell, achieve sweeping design reforms with spatial rejuvenation. This transformed the familiar encased core into a prismatic, steel and glass transportation network and light shaft on the building’s western flank. The project represents a new office typology for Australia through the combination of the three key building elements: core, atrium and floor-plate. In a departure from traditional office design, the core, containing fire stairs, toilets and risers, is relocated to the building’s western edge making it the first remote office core in Australia. The tower’s astonishing internal workings are knitted seamlessly between forecourt to the east and lift-bank to the west. A reception area links the two principal ground. floor spaces. Between the external core and the floorplate, a 160 metre high atrium, lifts run the full height of the building at a slippery 7m per second – not far behind the world’s fastest at 9m per second. Transition areas from public to commercial spaces are defined by glazing across the 31 levels. Convenient public access and shelter is provided making the building far more accommodating to passers-by than most anonymous, ‘off-limits’ commercial properties. The building’s northeast corner city grid provides seriously impressive views with barely any loss of amenity, even from the building’s ‘core’, free of liftbanks and services. The tower’s real differences are its offset ‘core’ and glazing package. Foster and Partners selected G James Solarplus® LE60 insulated glass units (IGUs) for their high light transmission and excellent solar and thermal control fabricated using Pilkington Glass. These products are an excellent example of the high quality glazing products available from the Australian manufacturers. Combinations of spectrally selective low E airco coating by G James are used for the IGUs, and an ‘on line’ Low E Pilkington Energy Advantage™ is incorporated in the Laminated G James Optilight® Excel for the single glazed areas. High-rise towers typically experience summer heat loading spikes that can require costly, energy guzzling, ‘fixes’. Low E is a premium performance glass that ensures operational integrity with negligible loss of daylight transmission and transparency without the mirror glass reflection. Externally, 126 Phillip Street is relatively restrained. The principal gesture of a stepped roof ensures the tower complies with height limits to protect overshadowing of Martin Place in addition to facilitating high levels of indirect light through the atrium. Connection plates span the atrium, from the lifts to office floor-plates. These forum-sized walkways create important reception and meeting areas. The atrium, Australia’s tallest, provides a visual contrast from the office floor-plate and responds naturally to the environment. Daylight is drawn down and through the building and relief air is exhausted through its glazed roof. Foster is the modern day Mies van der Rohe. The early and mid-20th century’s greats – Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd-Wright – showed no sign of slowing with age. "Is there life after architecture?" Of course not, "It’s a pretty important part of life," Foster replies making it clear that the challenge of projects such as Phillip Street continues to drive him onwards and upwards.