buzzing greenwood plaza

Design work at Greenwood Plaza, was completed end of 2012 by Crone Partners Architects and Interiors. This involved a number of upgrades to the centre including; new respite seating, new ceiling treatments and new lighting designs. The new ceiling and lighting treatments cover 7 major zones in the centre, helping to rejuvenation the existing shopping Plaza, in need of modernisation.

Crone designed the ceilings to use environmentally friendly materials, such as, the plywood louvres that form a curving, directional spine at the centre. The ridge line of the vertical louvres is constantly changing, creating the idea of movement, ever prevalent in the daily movements of commuters from North Sydney Station through the concourse level.

The existing lights in the centre were replaced with highly energy efficient LED lights, providing improved LUX levels for shoppers and providing Energy Saving Certificates for the client. The futuristic lights are located at key entries to the mall and were developed to highlight the main entrancies to the concourse level. Construction of the ceilings was over a 3 month period.

The design of the upper level lighting, looked at creating an artificial atrium light, similar to the existing atriums at the centre. Through the existing atrium skylights you see the branches of large trees through the glass roof. The lighting is connected to a computer system allowing the light feature, termed the “birds nest” to change colour or work on a programmed loop of colours. The lighting system and design was developed through a collaborative design approach, with Crone Partners, Mirvac, Barrisol, Mainbrace and Philips Lighting.

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Tadao Ando Designs Luxury Residential Building in New York | ArchDaily

Tadao Ando is a master in the use of raw concrete in his buildings. This 7 level residential building in New York shows his talents in the design of multi-level buildings which is a fairly uncommon project type for his office.

Tadao Ando Designs Luxury Residential Building in New York | ArchDaily.

 

the gherkin facade | michaelbanak

Norman Foster’s Gherkin tower in London, is an iconic form on the city skyline. The first of a number of “named” buildings in London such as the Cheese Grater, Shard and Walkie Talkie buildings it has a visually striking facade pattern that curves around the elevations of the building. The dark band of glass on the facade highlights atrium spaces that rotate around the building every 3 floors.

the gherkin facade | michaelbanak.

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lloyds | michaelbanak

Lloyds of London is getting weary with age but still has that amazing feel to it. The Richard Rogers building, with its services expressed on the outside of the building is awe inspiring to see in real life. The details are intricate and the shiny stainless steel facade create an unusual dark and gothic feel to the building.

lloyds | michaelbanak.

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180B comes to life

After months of construction work in the basement levels of 180B the building is finally coming alive. The amazing truss structure that spans the railway lines in Brisbane is exposed at ground level and can be seen over 5 levels of the podium. Hyder Structures worked closely with Crone Partners to design an innovative structure that spans the railway tunnels with diagonal bracing and uses the core itself to straddle the railway lines.

The unique side core commercial office building is 34 levels in height and has over 60,000m2 of NLA with large open floor plates.

It is a thrill to see this image provided by Watpac Constructions and see the shape of the office floor plate coming out of the ground, having worked on the project since its early conception in 2008. Crone Partners won the project in a Design Competition and have enjoyed working collaboratively in the design process with our client Daisho.

I’m also impressed seeing our site Architect Nick Grbavac giving good scale in his yellow hard hat in front of one of these amazing columns. Nice shot Nick.

180 b trusses

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180B axo view