TWIN Towers for Kent street carpark!

[CULWULLA]

Only early days , a proposal will come in soon for a 30storey tower to be built atop the existing 10storey kent St carpark.
The Canberra firm want to do a similar makeover aka- Enacon carpark just along kent st with 383 kent st.which turned out great!
The apartment tower can achieve a height of 80-90m. So it will be built up against the blank southern walls of Meritons Maesti towers>

http://img52.photobucket.com/albums/v158/culwulla/519kentst.jpg

there goes the views for Frazier Suites!lol

[AltiusAltiusAltius]

Fantastic news! :)

I've been waiting for this one - Maestri's blank walls are pain in the ass!! Can't wait to see it on the City model! :cheers:

[CULWULLA]

along with the tower planned opposite KENS on Kent st (next to current E&Y Tower), the kent street will be a 80-90m wall of scrapers stretching from Liverpool st to Highgate!

[Trances]

Yep still early but this good news
shame cant be little taller but will complete the canyon

[Syd-Hk]

Yea good news!

[finn]

Excellent! I've designed a 'scraper for the top of this carpark about a million times in my head...the developers should give me a call, lol! ;)

[Trances]

sure there would be people in Queues to hear your dreams ?

[finn]

sure there would be people in Queues to hear your dreams ?

Lol, if only that were the truth! :D

But that's why I'm doing my Bachelor of Property Economics...so I can just bloody build what I like! ;)

[Fabian]

Great news. The developers shouldn't let us down on this one when the models and renderings come in.

With Judges House next door, I hope they allow windows along it's southern wall. Another blank wall will cheez me off. :bash:

[finn]

Great news. The developers shouldn't let us down on this one when the models and renderings come in.

With Judges House next door, I hope they allow windows along it's southern wall. Another blank wall will cheez me off. :bash:

I agree totally! :wallbash:

[fro]

Ah! this is stupendous news. That's the thing with blank walls. They look 100% shite but when there's a tower built alongside it they're totalyl forgotten.

More!

[SinCity]

Thats excellent because that complex is one ugly eyesore. So many uglies are going gradually in this town.

[CULWULLA]

the DA has come in! there twin triangular towers (Similar to Distillery Hill) and both 26storeys/80m tall to flat roofs. there separated so the lightwell is honoured for Maestri towers. the both staggered towers because of 10m height dif from Kent to Sussex st. but both are 80m above there street.
the model comes in Friday!

[christarrant]

sounds good but isn't that entire block pretty much full of 80m high units which means that this would just fill in another gap but not impact at all on the cityscape apart from the front facade ( which im sure will be nice though) ?????

[Muse]

^ That's alright. They can get lost on the skyline but I like the idea of coming across new surprises while walking around. If everything is all visible at once, there's nothing left. Yummm, element of surprise. Chances are that 80-90m scrapers have some affect on the skyline, somwhere, somehow.

Hey, when did this become a twin job?

[CULWULLA]

yes they will become part of the 80m/90m wall along the western precinct but still should look ok.
muse. there only stage 1, so this is there first initial design.

[finn]

You know what triangular towers means...NO BLANK WALLS! YAY!

As long as one of the faces of the triangular prisms backs directly onto the blank walls of the Maestri Towers, the other two sides of the triangle will form an arrow of sorts, pointing south! This is highly appropriate since the adjacent site is that cool little building with the gardens, which I would presume is heritage listed! Blank walls facing that site would never have been covered up!

This sounds like the beginnings of a cool design to me! :)

[CULWULLA]

the twin towers have there north wall attached to Maestri tower facades.
it actually looks perfect! ill try post pix friday.

[Fabian]

This is highly appropriate since the adjacent site is that cool little building with the gardens, which I would presume is heritage listed! Blank walls facing that site would never have been covered up!

This sounds like the beginnings of a cool design to me! :)

The building next door is Judges House of 1819 which has been heritage listed.

[CULWULLA]

The Judges house was completed in 1825. It is oldest surviving single storey dwelling in the CBD.and 5th oldest structure overall.
Sydney's oldest in order>
Mint Building-1815
Cadmans Cottage-1816
St James Church-1822
Hyde Park Barracks-1824
Judges House-1825

[Trances]

Wow cant wait for the models

[CULWULLA]

heres a pic of block models.

http://img52.photobucket.com/albums/v158/culwulla/bestshot.jpg


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid123/p2b6bb20dac2f5db3f49ca4b184e431dc/f823ed20.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid123/pcd055c1788d8e12a8e76b729d7d35074/f823ed26.jpg

[James Saito]

Bloody hell, the south is getting denser and denser every minute!!

[CULWULLA]

Bloody hell, the south is getting denser and denser every minute!!
theres a 17storey next to MBF yet to come in. So that area sure will be a dense "residential" zone!!

[Fabian]

Excellent shape and it looks like they have integrated it very well with the Maestri Towers. I hope the renders reinforce this.

If they added another 10 metres to the Kent St Tower, there would of been a set of scrapers stepping up perfectly from Darling Harbour (Millennium Towers, the Sussex St Tower, Frasier Suites and Lumiere and HSBC).

[Trances]

I think they look great and have taken full advantage of the site and vews to the south

[Muse]

They seem to knock-down 2 blank walls (both Maestri Towers).

What the heck....that massive podium!!

[Tony P]

Ohh, I'm biting my tounge with this one. I'm waiting for the real proposal/renders before I let rip. Hopefully I wont need to.

[CULWULLA]

FMJT are the architects (John Boyd Tower) so the final design will be cool!

[fro]

FMJT are the architects (John Boyd Tower) so the final design will be cool!
Excellent. So these WILL be good. Hope they act in harmony with Lumiere/Fraser towers...

We can only hope.

[CULWULLA]

new models are in. i like the curved shape! glass walls facing south/west optimizing views!.cool

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/culwulla/newmodels.jpg

[Tony P]

I think the architect has done a really good job in a creating a tangible building out of something that was really designed by a councillor/planner. I wonder what the same architect, without stringent block model restrictions, but basic height and floorspace restrictions instead, would have and could have designed for the site. Something truly inspirational perhaps, and not 'odd shaped blobs on yet another overscaled podium' inspired by an uninspired planner.

You can tell the architect is quite competent though. Look at how they've built a huge glass wall in an act to diminish the impact of the massive scale of the podium. It's like they're saying 'we didn't want to do it this way, but considering we had to, it's best to make it at least look invisible'.

[Avatar]

Sometimes I don't understand council. That podium is disgusting, large, heavy and should not be there at all. The architcects have done well to minimise impact but with such a large and bulky podium it is hard to disguise it.

One tower with twice the height and no podium would look far superior and have far less impact at ground level... what are council thinking?

[CULWULLA]

av- the podium is existing 10 level carpark. the devlopers are doing same thing that was done at 383 kent st. genious idea/ retain carpark and erect on top!

[Aussie Steve]

This is great. Another reuse of a car park as a podium and now 2 towers on top!

[Tony P]

[RANT MODE] Note: To anyone who drives to the city, damn you to hell. Move to freakin' Houston!

http://www.urbanphoto.net/temp/montreal/03-carfree/DSCF3690a.jpg

[/RANT MODE]

[Dale]

Not that Houston is a pedestrians dream, but I'd guess that pic is very, very outdated.

[CULWULLA]

lol tony. its true . we still need carparking in the CBD, be it above or below.
383 kent st project>

http://www.leightoncontractors.com.au/projects.asp?pid=29

[Tony P]

I dare say everyone on the forums would know that based on our interest in skyscrapers, Dale. :)

Nevertheless Dale, this was a built reality at some point in time, decided apon as the model of how the city should develop, laws were put in place to bring us to the sorry mess you see above and people voted to elect these lawmakers.

If the internet had been around back in the 70's, it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to know there would be a vast mass of apologists for this kind of development (there still are, but their numbers are depleted), and that a slew of parochial late-teen to 40something male 'Houstoners' would be rating their city above New York, London, Vienna, Paris, Boston, Chicago, hell - even LA and the like.

I'm merely showing everyone the worst case of urban design humankind (well, it was the 70's so I'll say mankind) has ever devised since agriculture allowed us to live in large congregations. It's something to learn from. Even Houston has.

I've diverged from the topic enough though, so I'll stop now.

[Trances]

really they would be digging a hole for this one
so would be a little faster than most then !

[andad1]

Sorry but I dont like the form at all!!
The podium "Overpowers" the two towers.
Would have looked FAR more impressive if the towers were twice that height!!
lol

[fro]

Sorry but I dont like the form at all!!
The podium "Overpowers" the two towers.
Would have looked FAR more impressive if the towers were twice that height!!
lol
Fair criticism, but as Cul stated, the development will incorporate the existing multilevel carpark into the towers. Considering that design constraint, I think the design is quite good. Not spectacular, but definitely not the worst effort in that part of town.

The sharp lines a refreshing to the Hong Kong/Oriental inspired residential busy facades that dominate that part of town.

[MrTall]

The taller tower should be slightly taller I feel. The front glass wall looks promising but it'd be interesting to see the side/rear elevation. Hope it's not a concrete wall!

[SinCity]

I agree that the podium is a bit heavy but if they are keeping the carpak then the complete thing is one major improvement to the current heap of shit thats sitting there!

[CULWULLA]

The taller tower should be slightly taller I feel. The front glass wall looks promising but it'd be interesting to see the side/rear elevation. Hope it's not a concrete wall!
the taller tower is 10m higher above sea level! both are limited to 80m and there is a 10m height dif from Sussex & kent st. they should do a KENS! and build a 130-140m tower in the centre of site. more of a landmark,.

[climbing_crane]

is the carpark being demolitionized???