This is an article from the Architecture Australia archives and may use outdated formatting
POLAND: BANK SLASKI Denton Corker Marshall has begun constructing a two-phase headquarters for Bank Slaski SA in Kratowice, Poland. Stage 1 comprises a 10-floor executive tower and a six-storey, 147 metre-long, general office block. These two buildings will be linked by a four-storey atrium housing a restaurant, bar and exhibition spaces. A 250-seat auditorium and a treasury facility will pierce the atrium as “dynamic” structures, and the design also includes a flagship bank branch and underground parking
MELBOURNE: UNDERWATER WORLD Peddle Thorp’s Melbourne office is constructing a new riverside aquarium within the Yarra Turning Basin, which is intended to be the hub of a new tourist precinct. The Melbourne Underwater World complex will have restaurants and shops accessible from both the riverfront and city, an oceanarium tank with acrylic walking tunnels and a deep-water trench with a window allowing views from an amphitheatre. According to the architects, it will be “a world-class interactive, multi-sensory visitor experience where conservation education underpins entertainment.” A highlight will be the function area inside the main ocean tank
PARIS: BERCY-TOLBIAC FOOTBRIDGE
One of eight shortlisted schemes in a City of Paris competition for a footbridge across the Seine was a joint submission by French architect Philippe Robert (who now works between Sydney and Paris) with the NSW Department of Public Works & Services. The Reichen & Robert/DPWS design, which did not win, has been planned for appreciation by pedestrians on and under the bridge. It reuses the former Tolbiac viaduct attached to two parallel new arches: one suspended structure tensioning both base elements in symbiosis. The deck allows light temporary structures to be installed for public events and the roof is a transluscent vault
SYDNEY: TOYOTA HEADQUARTERS Bates Smart is building a new national sales and marketing headquarters for Toyota on a tract at Woolooware Bay, on Botany Bay near Sydney Airport. According to a masterplan, the long, thin building goes at the rear of the property, facing north to mangroves and the water, with a three-storey sloping glass facade terminating the road through the site. The building will have concrete floor slabs supported by a steel ‘exoskeleton’ to which canopies and sunshades will be clipped. Two sunshade treatments are planned: sloping fabric structures shading the ground floor cafeteria and function areas, with deep metallic shades to the windows of offices upstairs
POLAND: BANK SLASKI
MELBOURNE: UNDERWATER WORLD
PARIS: BERCY-TOLBIAC FOOTBRIDGE
SYDNEY: TOYOTA HEADQUARTERS
