by Brianna Crandall — May 1, 2013—London-based architectural firm Grimshaw has submitted plans for a 90-story skyscraper designed to be the tallest residential tower in the Southern Hemisphere once it is built in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. Building on a roof height of 306 meters, spires atop the Aspire Tower will reach to 336 meters, which will reportedly top the Q1 tower in Queensland, the current tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Aspire Tower is intended to provide Sydney’s premier regional city with an iconic, innovative development that people will instantly recognize. The tower is one of the first developments of Parramatta City Council’s Parramatta Square, a landmark development precinct set across three hectares of Council-owned space and real estate in the heart of the Parramatta central business district (CBD).
Expected to help revitalize the urban center, the Aspire Tower development includes 700 apartments, retail space in the lower levels, and a 150-room hotel. The project will incorporate a vibrant public domain, bars and retail as well as the region’s tallest publicly accessible viewing platform and experience center, which will offer “spectacular” views of Sydney.
Grimshaw says the project establishes a new benchmark for innovative, passive-environmental design in high-rise developments, providing high-density, urban residential living that is not only affordable but sustainable. The design reportedly maximizes the capture of the sun, breeze and views for its residents.
Adaptable façades are designed to accommodate the various planning arrangements of apartment type into a modular system. The east- and west-facing residential wings, connected to a perforated central core, open up to the south to catch air movements, while twisting inwards to the north to disperse the downward force of the wind, Grimshaw explains.
The tower will help Sydney meet New South Wales targets for at least another 500,000 homes and 600,000 jobs over the next 20 years. Grimshaw Partner Andrew Cortese said that with the demands of urban intensification to meet population growth, the environmental footprint of a high density tower is “far superior” to that of the suburban equivalent accommodating the same amount of residents. Cortese said the project can transform the area, making everything else around it “more viable, more valuable and more amenable.”
