Location: Brisbane, Australia.

Architect: DBI Design Pty Ltd.

W Brisbane is adjacent to the Brisbane River and Riverside Expressway and is composed of 3 towers (5 Star Hotel, Residential Tower & Office Tower) with a vibrant retail podium and multi-level basement carpark. Masterplanning, design, documentation and coordination of the W Brisbane hotel, retail podium, basement car parking and services, and landscape integration of the Brisbane Quarter into the city fabric. The building synthesises a complex program into a simple and clear parti that is both legible and coherent. The Adelaide Street entrance is a direct response to the principal entrance to the Brisbane City Council headquarters and city library opposite. The Ann Street entrance is located towards George Street to avoid the Riverside Expressway’s on-ramp impacts.

The development forms part of a broad-scale redevelopment of the precinct including the multi-billion dollar Queen’s Wharf development. This dense, complex project is located on a ‘brownfield site’ complicated by limited access, provisions for a future bus tunnel, expressway on-ramp and the visual and acoustic impact of the Riverside Expressway. The retail podium is predominantly glazed and shaded to admit natural light into the tenancies, and allegorically represents the street trees of Brisbane and the Jacaranda tree. The river frontage is also considered allegorically, representing the flow of the Brisbane river and the undulations of the riverside expressway. Brisbane has one of Australia’s most comfortable climatic zones, with summer average temperatures ranging from 21-29.8°C (69.8-85.6°F), Autumn 15-25°C (59-77°F) and Winter 11-21°C (51.8-69.8°F).

Thermal comfort is relatively easy to achieve. The podium is a glazed ‘box’ enveloped by an art screen acting as a thermal filter, where the heat load is low, the screen is more porous. At the entrances, the facade folds and undulates to reduce the thermal load. The tower faces south towards South Brisbane, the city’s cultural precinct, and its form is a pragmatic response to the constrained site and a desire to address, embrace and represent the Brisbane River. The design was approved in a record time frame of just 4 weeks and 4 days, obviating the need for community consultation.