Lendlease Corp moved into its new headquarters in the 168-tall tower 3 of Barangaroo South’s International Towers on Friday, 11 years after being shortlisted in the design competition for the new Sydney financial district between the harbour bridge & Darling Harbour and 6½ years after winning the state government contract to develop stage 1.
2000 of the construction company’s employees are moving from 5 locations into 24,500m² on levels 8-19 of Tower 3’s 39 floors.
Work practices
Chief executive & managing director Steve McCann said the new headquarters showcased Lendlease’s capability – it’s owned by a Lendlease-managed fund, was built by the company, is in a precinct transformed by its urban regeneration business and is in a tenancy that demonstrated the group’s understanding of vibrant, productive workspaces for employees & customers.
Under the team-based working model, instead of belonging to an individual desk, employees belong to a team neighbourhood of 15-20 people, and each neighbourhood has access to a range of spaces. Spaces include a team table, the anchor point for each team; working walls for visual communication; enclosed spaces known as pods; breakaways, for less formal & ad hoc collaboration; and focus points, for tasks requiring concentration.
Levels 13 & 14 feature a 6m high breathing green wall containing over 5000 plants. Mr McCann said the active, modular green wall system was scientifically proven to accelerate the removal of air pollutants, such as carbon dioxide & volatile organic compounds. “In addition, it cools the surrounding air temperature, resulting in energy efficiency and health & wellbeing gains.”
Tower 3 is one of the largest highrise office buildings to have received a 6 star green star office design v3 rating from the Green Building Council of Australia.
As well as noting that staff will have access to over 1000 bike racks, 40% of their work stations are stand-up desks. Lendlease made some observations about work practices in its business, and said the research that informed its new workplace strategy & design revealed:
- 41% of its people occupy a work point seat at any time
- 36% are away, on site or working away from the office
- 23% will be around & about, mainly in meetings or refreshing
- 54% of their work is process-type, interruptible & routine
- 53% of their work is done collaborating with others, and
- 46% of their work requires deeper thinking, focus & to be ‘in the zone’.
Barangaroo South project progress
The whole of Barangaroo South adds about 270,000m² of premium office space to Sydney – similar in scale to the Marina Bay financial centre in Singapore & Canary Wharf in London. 3 towers named International Towers Sydney have been built, 2 now occupied:
Tower 1, PwC, HSBC, Marsh & McLennan, Servcorp
Tower 2, Westpac, Swiss Re, Gilbert + Tobin
Tower 3, KPMG, Lendlease
- $A4 billion of funding secured for the whole precinct
- Unitholders in the Towers 2 & 3 owner, Lend Lease International Towers Sydney Trust, are the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (50%), Australian Prime Property Fund Commercial (25%), Lend Lease Trust (15%) & APG (10%)
- Tower 2 completed & opened 1 July 2015. Tower 3 opening mid-2016 and Tower 1 to open end 2016
- Barangaroo Reserve (6 ha of parkland) opened by NSW Government in mid-2015.
- 7000 office workers have moved into Tower 2 and 25 retailers are trading in the precinct; on completion there will be over 80 retail outlets
- $A40 million public art fund ($A20 million for Barangaroo South) established, with first indigenous artwork unveiled late 2015
- Transport for NSW’s construction of Wynyard Walk & Barangaroo Ferry hub is ongoing
- Planning assessments in progress for concept plan amendment (modification 8) & Crown Hotel
- Application to come for Renzo Piano-designed 1 Sydney Harbour towers.
Trust also buys 6-storey laminated timber office building
An impression of the 6-storey Barangaroo timber-structure office building.
As its own new headquarters in Barangaroo South neared completion, Lendlease Corp announced on 24 June that the owner of 2 of the 3 office towers in the precinct, Lend Lease International Towers Sydney Trust, would also acquire an innovative 6-storey engineered timber office building.
The building, designed by Jonathan Evans & Alec Tzannes of Tzannes Associates, is aimed at setting a new benchmark in the use of sustainable building materials. It’s due for completion next year.
It will have 5 office floors above ground-floor retail, net lettable area of 6850m², and will be built at the Sussex St junction between the old central business district and the new Barangaroo.
The building will be constructed from cross-laminated timber (CLT) & glue-laminated timber (glulam). CLT has a lower carbon footprint than other building materials, the production process produces zero waste, and timbers are sourced from certified sustainably managed forests. Much of the building can be prefabricated and assembled on site.
Mr Tzannes said: “Looking from the bridges leading to Barangaroo, through the clean glass skin, the multi-storey timber structure forms the character of the architecture, that from inside creates an interior environment reminiscent of the spaces often found in Sydney’s historic timber or cast iron & brick buildings from the era when warehouse buildings were crucial to Australia’s maritime economy.”
International House Sydney is Lendlease’s third CLT building in Australia, joining 2 in Melbourne – Forté Apartments and the Library at The Dock. The library is Australia’s first 6-star green star public building and is made from engineered timber & reclaimed hardwood.
Links: Lendlease
Barangaroo
Barangaroo South
International House Sydney
Earlier stories:
21 December 2009: Lend Lease wins Barangaroo stage 1
25 March 2006: 11ha of park in Sydney’s East Darling redevelopment
7 August 2005: East Darling Harbour design competition goes to round 2
Attribution: Company releases.
