Get a Better Return on Your Built Space ABOUT OUR COMPANY
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Get a better return on your built space ABOUT OUR COMPANY A pedigree startup, now world-class sports facility designers and a members of a select “design excellence” club Not every startup architect’s practice gets commissioned to design a premier-class, Commonwealth Games-standard sports academy as its inaugural project. Likewise, if only a small number of architectural practices ever gets invited to participate in a significant design competition, it is a considerably smaller number that gets paid a handsome fee to do so. Fewer still are able participate on the basis of “design excellence” for a major urban site under the sponsorship of its local metropolitan authority. In our short span of 18 months in business, we’ve managed both. Shiro Architects got its start when it was commissioned to design the Carrara Gardens Golf and Tennis Academy on the Gold Coast, whose first phase is due for completion in mid-2016. (You can see a brief animated flythrough of the design of that facility at www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsjV3-DSk8U.) In October 2015, our practice was invited to participate in a design excellence competition hosted by Parramatta City Council for a 23-storey residential tower to be developed by the well- established western Sydney developer, Dyldam. Before starting Shiro, Hiromi Lauren, née Shiraishi, worked for almost 20 years for world-renowned architects Harry Seidler and Associates, where she was considered one of Harry's favourites. As you can see beneath, Seidler clients, such as apartment developer Meriton, have very kind words to say about her work. Her design on the multi-residential North Apartments building in Sydney’s Goulburn Street netted a windfall of over $5 million for its developer when Hiromi managed to squeeze in an extra apartment on each of 11 of the development’s 16 storeys. Naturally, the client was delighted, as was Harry Seidler himself, whose daughter Polly Seidler wrote that her father considered Hiromi an “extremely gifted architect”. For such a young business, the esteem in which our practice’s design is held is growing quickly, so if you have a new building project to discuss to which we can apply our growing expertise and experience, please let us discuss our capabilities with you in greater detail. Get a better return on your built space shiroarchitects.com PARRAMATTA DESIGN EXCELLENCE COMPETITION, OCTOBER 2015 Dyldam Developments, 5-7 Parkes Street, Parramatta Shiro Architects joined a highly select club, when, as underdogs, third on the ticket to two other extremely well-established and well-known firms, it participated in an invited, limited-entrant, paid “design excellence” competition hosted by Parramatta City Council for a 23-storey residential tower to be developed by Dyldam Developments. Ok, Shiro didn’t win. Yet, in a competition ultimately decided by a council jury, Hiromi Lauren once again proved her ability to get a better yield on built space than a majority of designers. In her hands, Shiro’ submission comfortably exceeded the requirements of the brief by designing in 173 apartments on a challenging site, against a requirement for only 150 units. Design quality aside, her capacity for getting the maximum yield out of constrained spaces is what frequently distinguishes her work. Within Parramatta City Council’s vision for the city, the Parramatta Ring Road on which the building’s Parkes Street site sits is intended to become a “distinct city entrance”. Against this, Shiro presented an imposing, modern residential building that met the expectations of its highly visible location, in two building forms. As the Parramatta DCP demands that on a significant corner site a building's shape should follow that of the corner, at the site’s western end, wrapping around the intersection of Parkes and Anderson Street, we introduced a slim, curved 23-storey tower. To the site’s east, its counterpart low-rise apartment block stepped from seven to 10 to 12 storeys. From Parkes Street west, the tower and low-rise building are connected structurally, but not visually from the street. Our design aimed to innovate within the site boundaries, View from Parkes Street east View from Parkes Street west View from Anderson Street providing an aesthetically distinctive and conceptually clear architecture, exploring alternative designs for ventilation, wind screening, light, solar access, assembly, planting and materials. Its setbacks as it rose provided roof spaces for lush landscaping and outdoor-indoor living experiences for residents, entangling and softening the analytical clarity of the modern architecture itself. The comments of the competition judges can be found beneath. Get a better return on your built space shiroarchitects.com CURRENT PROJECT: COMMERCIAL LEISURE/SPORTS Golf and tennis academy, Queensland, a 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games-standard facility Shiro Architects launched its business in 2014 with the design for the redevelopment of the Carrara Gardens Golf and Tennis Academy, located near Nerang, on Queensland’s Gold Coast, now very much under construction. This comprises an extensive overhaul of the existing Carrara Gardens Golf Course facility. The Carrara Gardens Golf and Tennis Academy is a world-class coaching facility situated amid the redevelopment of the wider Carrara Sports Precinct which will stage many of the events of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. When phase one is completed in 2016, its main block will comprise a driving range containing 40 golf driving bays, 20 tennis courts, of which 12 will be of the finest clay, computerised golf training, a gym, health bar and an outdoor pool. In phase two, yet more extensive facilities will be added to the Academy. View the video flythrough of the Carrara Gardens design at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsjV3-DSk8U Carrara Gardens’ design philosophy To maximise the effect of the scenery behind, the Carrara Gardens design focuses on the building’s harmony with its landscape, and its cool, modern design and striking, stand-out architecture will differentiate it from all other such facilities in its vicinity. Its transparency connects interior and exterior spaces to bring the landscape indoors, blending it with its local natural surroundings. Voluminous and airy, the building’s sports architecture and interior language is frank and timeless, sculptural in its form. Effective use of natural light, its selection of natural finishes and the volumes of its interior spaces create a fluid, interactive environment, making it open, bright, transparent and welcoming, with nothing hidden. Through its glass can be seen all the activities that take place within its four core volumes, each forging its own identity. Get a better return on your built space shiroarchitects.com ABILITY: DELIVERING WINDFALLS FOR DEVELOPERS ABILITY: DESIGN OF MULTI-RESIDENTIAL TOWERS North Apartments, Goulburn Street, Sydney Meriton Tower, George Street, Sydney Hiromi: “The site, on Goulburn Street, opposite the Masonic Centre Hiromi: “Harry Seidler and I designed Meriton Tower together. and next to the Family Law Court, runs east to west and Harry and Meriton’s Harry Triguboff owned the Village Cinema site, and the my boss, Seidler partner Peter Hirst, took a look at it. They thought City of Sydney had just then introduced its competitive design that because there was only one open aspect available onto the process for design excellence, and as the client, Harry Triguboff, street, the rest being surrounded by buildings, they could get only chose to have an ‘invited’ architectural design competition, we three apartments per floor from it. were invited. “Where, technically, it would have been possible to put windows “As Harry always wanted to give everyone a good view, we on the west side, the City of Sydney wouldn’t allow us to do it, twisted the design into the building’s triangular shape so because if the Mandarin Club to the west was ever demolished that everyone got a view towards water, out towards Darling and a tall building were to replace it, those windows wouldn’t Harbour, Botany Bay and towards Hyde Park. get any sun. “As Harry did all the time, we put projected balconies into “They thought there was nothing else they can do, it’s either the design to make contrasts and shadows, so we calculated three units per floor or two, but I thought probably I can put carefully what was the most beautiful thing to do. four in there. Harry didn’t especially like the idea at first because the design could never be optimal if an apartment didn’t have “We found out that every single week, Harry Triguboff would direct sun and had to borrow sunlight from the living room. go to every site with his architects, and he wanted complete flexibility from his designers. “Yet, considering the site was in the south of the city and the lifestyles of the people who lived there meant they were only “What were apartments one week would be changed to become really there to sleep and the units didn’t really have any life in serviced apartments, and then a hotel, and then strata-titled, the daytime, why not accept the compromise? and every time he changed his mind we would have to change the apartment mix to suit the council’s regulations. This would be “So, we raised the back of each unit to 450mm, above which the same, every time, every week. a bedroom could still have a view towards the north, which, prior to the Civic Centre being built above the Masonic Centre, “Then, he changed the apartment mix as well, so all these made for a really nice view. This worked so well that [developer- balconies we had carefully calculated, everything would be client] Greg Malouf could get an extra $550,000 apartment on changed, and the only wing he didn’t change was always one- each floor, yet still remaining within the existing FSR.