Two proposed buildings in Hobart could become the tallest in the city if development applications submitted to Hobart City Council are approved.
Singaporean developer Fragrance Group has proposed two hotels: a 120-metre-tall, five-star hotel on Davey Street and a 75-metre-tall, four-star hotel on Collins Street.
Currently the tallest building in Hobart is the 74-metre-tall Wrest Point Hotel Casino, designed by Roy Grounds in 1973 and currently slated for a $70-million refurbishment.
The tower designed by Xsquared Architects, located on Davey Street.
Image: Xsquared Architects
The 120-metre-tall tower has been designed by Xsquared Architects and the design started with the maximum height of the tallest tree in Tasmania, about 100 metres.
Xsquared director Peter Scott said the building incorporates brightly coloured sky gardens to help the buiding read as an articulated object.
“We wanted it to be cut into or have an articulated shape, so the scale of those sky gardens is designed to give it release and articulation at a distance of one kilometre,” said Scott.
The 400-room hotel has a three-level cut out from the Davey Street facade that would provide views of the Derwent River from Franklin Square, which sits behind the hotel.
An elevated bridge between Franklin Square and the proposed hotel arches over Davey Street and would allow people to see through the new building and over the roof of the heritage-listed City Mill.
Scott said that, following a series of design phases, he and his team realized that once the building exceeded a height of about 40 metres, the impact of the building’s height grew exponentially less.
“Most of the impact of the building is a result of, first of all, the first 20 metres or so because that is relevant to the buildings immediately around it, and then the next 20 metres is what’s going to cast shadow or have wind effects,” he said.
The 75-metre-tall tower, designed by S Group, uses a podium to match the current streetscape, said Samuel Haberle, director and senior architect at S Group.
“[The building] sits adjacent to a seven-storey apartment block so we’ve designed the podium in direct relation to that height […] so from a streetscape point of view you’re reading those forms together,” Haberle said.
The tower designed by S Group, located on Collins Street.
Image: S Group
Haberle said the tower component is set back 12 metres from the street so that when pedestrians look up, the tower is not visually dominant.
“Depending on how close you stand to the building you can’t actually see the tower at all and then the language of the tower versus the podium is very receptive. [The tower uses a] curtain wall glazed system – the idea obviously is the age-old argument of reflecting its surroundings to a degree,” said Haberle.
The Collins Street tower includes a 1000-seat conference room and 15 levels of hotel rooms and facilities.
Earlier this year a hotel that was set to be Tasmania’s tallest only received approval after a reduction in height.
The design of the Palace Hotel, by Jaws Architecture, was amended to accommodate council’s requirements, which saw one tower reduced to 54.8 metres and the other reduced to 62.2 metres.
