Again, modes of civic and commercial architecture engage where the city council required 363 to have an awning on George Street. The requirement is demonstrably odd next to the massive buildings without awnings (the National Australia Bank, the GIO and GPO). Only the recently refurbished NRMA building has an awning to part of its frontage. DCM have treated the awning as metal-clad and partly glass. A further council requirement, to set back the façade to make visible the adjoining buildings, allows a potential breakthrough to the colonnade of the Landmark Building, also owned by Australian Growth Properties.
On George Street, the height of the windowless podium approximates the height of 365 George Street (Edmund Blacket, 1857) and of 345 George Street (the Landmark Building by Henry Pollack, mid-1970s). Another of the five buildings, a warehouse at 24 York Street, was overlooked by the council for heritage listing. Australian Growth Properties dutifully restored its sandstone facade and modernised infrastructure beneath a false floor and upon trays suspended beneath the ceiling. This building is the York Street address of a new public passage between York and George Street. As at the George Street entrance, plaques with written histories are inlaid in granite.
The thin-walled architecture of the tower facade – metal, polished stone and glass bolted to a frame – contrasts the thick architecture of the podium. It is a further example of the interplay between the building and the city. So compact is the 35,000 sq m tower that what appears from George Street to be two towers is in fact one. The apparent divide is merely a flat perimeter column with no encroachment on floor space. Floors are column-free. From King Street, the tower appears to be divided where the floor plate is stepped. For Richard Johnson, the allusion to two towers dissolves the bulk when seen from the surroundings. It opens a way for him to compose the parts: tower, podium, lobby, mechanical plant, garage, entrance.
Here at the tower is architecture that is practical for tenants and filial to the overall development. Tenants are free to adjoin work-stations to walls, for the service core has one lobby to toilets, the goods lift and other utilities. The planning module is 1350mm x 450mm, with ceiling luminaires rotatable to 90 degrees to complement floor layouts.
The inner court is the great semi-public space of the development. It is part foyer to the tower, and part public passage between George and York Street. A 15-metre glass enclosure partitions the foyer from the passage between George and York Street. Adjoining it is a café. The understorey of the tower is a further 15 metres above the glass-enclosed lobby. Following demolition of a seven-storey building, the previously hidden backs of buildings on York Street face the light-flooded inner court and George Street. Installation artists Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford revel in the exposure of these buildings. They created The Water Swing – a 12 m-high stainless steel pendulum that swings with a shower of water at slow walking pace (a pendulum normally swings four times faster) along a 20-metre arc, north of the glass enclosure. Daylight reflects from a pool beneath the pendulum. Like the architecture of the interior, this very tactile and audible work provokes a visceral reaction.
Richard Johnson’s precise and intelligent eye for urban circumstances segues to wonderfully well-constructed architecture. He foreshadows in Sydney a future where architects are required to achieve a commercial outcome without clearing sites of existing building stock. At 363 George Street, it would have been impressive had he merely done that. That he should also unite five buildings as one development (upgrading four of them), highlight civic elements in Sydney that he feels have acquired well-understood identity and add a descendant to DCM’s work in Sydney, is real joy. It gives the development a timeless air. Moreover, the design is not exuberant with recourse to abstraction, excess or burlesque. The commercial and civic ideals that DCM hold for architecture they give common expression; yet with epic virtuosity of craftsmanship unparalleled since Seidler.
Christopher Procter is Deputy Director Design of City Projects at the City of Sydney | | 
Highrise Plans
| | 363 George Street Tower, Sydney
Architects Denton Corker Marshall (NSW) – directors Jeff Walker, Richard Johnson; associates Peter Blome, Kiong Lee; project team George Kokban, Andrew Schulltz, Carol Zang, Anthony Moorehouse, Andrew Cheng, Anatoli Patra, Gerard Reinmuth, Heike Reiwitizer, Paul van Rating, Paul Demaine, Graeme Dix, Wayne Dickerson, Jodie Tardelli, Monica Diradsi, Maurine Lai, Andrew Elia. Developer Australian Growth Properties. Project Manager Incoll Management. Principal Engineer Connell Wagner. Electrical Engineer Lincolne Scott. Lift Engineering Norman Disney & Young. Acoustics Acoustic Logic. Water Feature Artists Jennifer Turpin, Michaelie Crawford. Heritage Consultant Brian McDonald & Associates. Planning Consultant Julie Bindon. Quantity Surveyor Rider Hunt. Builder Multiplex.
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