85 Macquarie Street Spec Suites – Parramatta
TURNER‘s design of the boutique workplace at 85 Macquarie Street in Parramatta seamlessly blends urban uplift and heritage, featuring a dynamic façade inspired by adjacent buildings and Indigenous concepts.
TURNER-designed boutique workplace heralded as major visual landmark in evolving Parramatta CBD
TURNER has successfully fused Parramatta’s urban uplift with its heritage in the design of a new commercial workplace and iconic urban landmark.
The $125 million boutique development, officially opened on 23 May, is prominently located in Parramatta’s vibrant civic heart and directly overlooks Centenary Square.
The 13-storey building, known as ‘85 Macquarie Street’ and delivered by Holdmark Property Group, features four ground level retail outlets and 11 office levels above, with the topmost level enclosing plant rooms.
TURNER Associate Director Claire Mallin said 85 Macquarie Street makes a significant contribution to Parramatta’s rapid uplift as Sydney’s new, secondary CBD.
The design of 85 Macquarie Street serves as an important visual transition in the contrast between Parramatta’s heritage buildings and its future commercial presence.
TURNER’s competition-winning design was influenced by the heritage forms which bookend the site, including the existing church, the town hall and Murray’s Building, nearby.
The dynamic façade takes cues from the datums of the adjacent heritage buildings, as well as Indigenous concepts adopted as part of the landscape, public domain artworks, signage and wayfinding.
The building form responds to the solar plane with a series of terraced balconies to the top-level office floors.
Workers will enjoy the on-site cafés and restaurants, a concierge in the lobby and connectivity to public transport, including the Metro and light rail at its doorstep.
Meanwhile, a four-storey colonnade through the ground plane features a 30m long mural and symbolic sandstone wall engravings by Indigenous artist and philosopher Shane Smithers and collaborating artist Sakina Reijners. The public art intervention, titled ‘Same, Same, Different’, references the Dharug creation stories and invites the viewer to compare and contrast similar concepts in the world around them.
Design: TURNER
Photography: Brett Boardman
