Melbourne project wins CTBUH Renovation Award

One of the world’s largest timber adaptive re-use projects, 55 Southbank in Melbourne, has won the 2022 Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) International Conference Tall Excellence award for Renovation.

The annual CTBUH Awards Program recognises extraordinary contributions to the advancement of tall buildings and the urban environment. Awards are given in more than 20 categories for best tall building, urban habitat, innovation, renovation, interior design, construction, and engineering.

Inhabit provided façade consulting to the project. The original six-storey concrete building was designed to take an additional five levels of concrete-framed structure, but the architects instead designed 10 additional levels using Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT).

The façade is comprised of a glazed curtain wall with alternating glazed and curved aluminium slab edges (spandrels) of varying heights. There is double curved aluminium cladding within the curtain wall and as the internal finish to the balustrade panels at the large recessed balcony. The lobby has a double height glass fin façade.

Melbourne Associate Gemma Ambrosio comments:

“This was a unique and interesting project which involved adding storeys atop of an existing and occupied office building. We worked closely with the client, architects Bates Smart and builder throughout the design and construction phases to achieve the design intent: a contemporary, elegant and dynamic horizontal expression which was complementary and harmonious with the existing façade, whilst integrating the performance requirements and adopting detailing which utilised the benefits of having a CLT structure.”