You must be a CTBUH Member to view this resource.
Australia Square Tower
Building
Completed
1967
Office
All-Concrete
4.5-STAR NABERS
170 m / 558 ft
46
4
385
24
53,000 m² / 570,487 ft²
You must be a CTBUH Member to view this resource.
You must be a CTBUH Member to view this resource.
Construction Start
Completed
The main contractor is the supervisory contractor of all construction work on a project, management of sub-contractors and vendors, etc. May be referred to as "Construction Manager," however, for consistency CTBUH uses the term "Main Contractor" exclusively.
Material Supplier refers to organizations which supplied significant systems/materials for a building project (e.g. elevator suppliers, facade suppliers, etc).
You must be a CTBUH Member to view this resource.
Usually involved in the front end design, with a "typical" condition being that of a leadership role through either Schematic Design or Design Development, and then a monitoring role through the CD and CA phases.
The Design Engineer is usually involved in the front end design, typically taking the leadership role in the Schematic Design and Design Development, and then a monitoring role through the CD and CA phases.
The main contractor is the supervisory contractor of all construction work on a project, management of sub-contractors and vendors, etc. May be referred to as "Construction Manager," however, for consistency CTBUH uses the term "Main Contractor" exclusively.
Material Supplier refers to organizations which supplied significant systems/materials for a building project (e.g. elevator suppliers, facade suppliers, etc).
17 September 2015 - Event
30 October 2017
Helen Lochhead & Philip Oldfield, University of New South Wales
Since 2000, through the City of Sydney’s Competitive Design Policy (CDP), the quality of major projects in the city has been improved significantly, mediating the...
Australia’s tallest building upon completion, Australia Square Tower was an innovative structure for its time and was among the tallest all concrete buildings in the world. The building was conceived as a two-building complex occupying an entire city block which required the demolition of nearly 30 previous structures. The taller circular building is positioned at the western end of the block, while a publicly accessible plaza and the companion Plaza Building are positioned to the east. Both structures celebrate concrete as a sculptural material with structural expressionism, the Plaza Building’s floorplates are elevated above the ground level, set upon clusters of angled pilotis exhibiting structural load transfers between the building’s rectilinear frame and the ground, meanwhile the circular, taller tower has a perimeter of exterior concrete columns, tapering as they rise with curved concrete spandrels between them and a coffered ceiling in the lobby created from a radial ribbed floor system within the concrete floor slab.
During construction, quartz concrete was pre-cast into units of standardized sizes and used not only as a finish of the exterior façade, but also as formwork for the pouring of the reinforced concrete structure, assisting in shorting the construction schedule as the building rose at an average rate of one floor every five days. The circular form of the taller tower with the externalized skeletal structure provided for a highly efficient design achieving a total floor area of 12 times the entire site area, despite a small building footprint occupying only 25 percent of the block, while also providing for a robust resistance to windloads and a high degree of solar shading. Australia Square Tower is one of Sydney’s most famous buildings and is integral part of the city’s rich architectural heritage.
Subscribe below to receive periodic updates from CTBUH on the latest Tall Building and Urban news and CTBUH initiatives, including our monthly newsletter. Fields with a red asterisk (*) next to them are required.
View our privacy policy