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Sydney’s Quay Quarter Tower has dominated the global Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat awards.
The tower designed by 3XN and developed in partnership with BVN was named the winner of the council’s annual award for world’s best tall building and six other awards at the organisation’s annual international conference in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. It is the most categories one project has claimed in the history of the awards.
The 54-storey Quay Quarter Tower is owned by Dexus Wholesale Property Fund, Mirvac Wholesale Office Fund and Rest Super.
Tenants include Deloitte, IMC, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, JWS and EQT.
The project repositioned an existing underused building, the 1976 AMP Centre, retaining a significant portion of its beams, columns and slabs, as well as more than 95 per cent of its existing core, resulting in an embodied carbon savings of 12,000 metric tons in structure.
The tower’s self-shading facade reduces solar radiation, minimising mechanical loads on the building, and strategically positioned atria enable natural daylight into 2000sq m floor plates, improving energy efficiency in the interior.
As well, an innovative removable floor system in the atria allows occupants to remove and replace floor sections, affording flexibility that extends the lifecycle of the building.
Thanks to these and other carbon-reducing features, the building exceeds the operational performance of many newly constructed buildings and has achieved a 6-Star Green Star rating.
The building was also announced as the best tall building, Oceania; and won the construction, structure, space within, and repositioning awards, while its Quay Quarter Lanes won the urban habitat award.
Council chief executive Javier Quintana de Una said Quay Quarter Tower exemplified the forward-looking strategies and solutions that address the world’s density dilemma head on, “significantly reducing carbon emissions and helping to mitigate the impact of climate change while meeting the needs of its occupants and the surrounding community”.
Atlassian Central, the 39-storey, mixed-use building being built in Sydney’s Tech Central precinct, was named the Future Project award winner.
The hybrid timber building was designed by BVN and SHoP.
Best Tall Building Worldwide: Quay Quarter Tower, Sydney, Australia
Best Tall Building, Americas: Engineering laboratories | Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Columbia
Best Tall Building Asia: CapitaSpring, Singapore
Best Tall Building, Oceania: Quay Quarter Tower, Sydney, Australia
Best Tall Building, Europe: Sara Kulturhus, Skellefteå, Sweden
Best Tall Building, Middle East and Africa: Atlantis The Royal Resort, Dubai, UAE
Best Tall Building, Special Commendation: DJI Sky City, Shenzhen, China
Best Tall Building Under 100 Metres: Valley, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Best Tall Building 100–199 Metres: Lighthouse 2.0, Aarhus, Denmark
Best Tall Building 200–299 Metres: CapitaSpring, Singapore
Best Tall Building 300–399 Metres: The Spiral, New York City, United States
Best Tall Building 400 Metres and Above: Guangxi China Resources Tower, Nanning, China
Best Tall Non-Building: Lotus Tower, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Urban Habitat Award: Quay Quarter Lanes, Sydney, Australia
Future Project Award: Atlassian Central, Sydney, Australia
10-Year Award: The Interlace, Singapore
Construction Award: Quay Quarter Tower, Sydney, Australia
Repositioning Award: Quay Quarter Tower, Sydney, Australia
Innovation Award: Urban Sequoia NOW
Structure Award: Quay Quarter Tower, Sydney, Australia
Systems Award: Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance Tower, Shenzhen, China
Space Within Award: Quay Quarter Tower, Sydney
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Award: Turner Construction 2030
Best Tall Building, Special Commendation
DJI Sky City is the global corporate headquarters of DJI in Nanshan, Shenzhen, China and was designed by Norman Foster of Foster and Partners.
The project broke ground in 2017 and completed in December, 2022. The complex consists of two tower buildings of 213m and 195, each with a central core with large volumes cantilevered. An open-air suspension bridge connects the towers 100m above ground.
Best Tall Non-Building
Lotus Tower in Colombo, Sri Lanka is a 351.5m tower that has been called a symbolic landmark of Sri Lanka. As of 2019, the tower is the tallest self-supported structure in South Asia. The lotus-shaped tower is used for communication, observation and other leisure facilities. Construction is estimated to have cost $US113 million.
Best Tall Building 300m to 399m
The Spiral, also known as 66 Hudson Boulevard, is a 66-floor, 314 m skyscraper on 34th Street between Hudson Boulevard and Tenth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. It was developed by Tishman Speyer, constructed by Turner Construction, and opened in 2023.
Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, the building includes a clubhouse and an open-air terrace with panoramic city views on the 66th floor, along with a lounge.
Innovation Award
At COP26, the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, SOM unveiled Urban Sequoia, a concept for buildings and their urban context to absorb carbon at an unprecedented rate. SOM has developed the first step toward achieving this goal on a broad scale, with a design for a high-rise building that can be built today. Urban Sequoia brings together different strands of sustainable design thinking, the latest innovations, and emerging technologies and applies them at the scale of a building.
10-Year Award
Completed in 2013, The Interlace is a 1040-apartment complex in Singapore. Designed by The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), it was awarded the World Building of the Year title at the 2015 World Architecture Festival. The 170,000sq m Interlace is on an 8ha site and comprises 31 residential blocks. Recreational facilities include swimming pools, a gym and tennis courts.
Best Tall Building above 400m
Also known as China Resources Centre Block A, this supertall skyscraper in Nanning, Guangxi, China rises 403 metres. Construction began on the 86-storey tower in 2014 and it opened on November 2, 2020. It was originally planned to be 445m but that was amended mid construction due to airspace restrictions. Designed by Goettsch Partners, the tower includes more than 170,000sq m of A-grade office space, nearly 6000sq m of retail, and a 320-key Shangri-La hotel. It is home to the world’s highest swimming pool at 323m above the ground.
