Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Opera Residences is a landmark multi-residential building located at the southeastern corner of Circular Quay, Sydney, designed by Tzannes together with Crone Architects, MAKE, and Oculus for Landream Australia Land Pty. Ltd.
This 20-story building completes the colonnade leading to the Sydney Opera House (SOH), and provides active retail uses at ground level and 104 premium apartments above, offering an exceptional level of amenities to residents, visitors, and the general public.
In one of the most important and visited precincts in the city that connects Circular Quay to the SOH and Royal Botanic Gardens, it was essential that the architecture enhances the distinct urban character of the location and contributes to the global identity of Sydney.
Opera Residences has recently been awarded a 2022 International Architecture Awards Honorable Mention by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
At its base, Opera Residences includes a grand colonnade that completes the public walkway at East Circular Quay.
With its three levels of retail and hospitality, it invigorates a previously blighted waterfront area.
The design includes landscape improvements and kiosk facilities in the adjacent areas of the public domain.
A grand public stairway linking Circular Quay to the Royal Botanic Gardens completes the colonnade and is designed in part to reflect the legacy of Utzon’s use of expressed structure at the SOH.
Above the stone and concrete podium, the architecture of the apartments extends the street wall of East Circular Quay and Macquarie Street and includes a lantern-like element of larger apartments that take full advantage of their position on the harbour.
Rather than creating a building of sharp edges, Opera Residences was conceived as a fluid form in stone, concrete and glass, generating a continuous sequence of experiences and interpretive expressive elements from southern, eastern, western, and even northern vantage points, much like the SOH at the opposite end of the precinct.
The apartment divisions are disguised by glass bay windows to enhance this concept of “fluidity” and interior outlook using a combination of opaque, fritted, and transparent glass bent to tight radii using groundbreaking glass technology.
From Macquarie Street, an understated character reflects the dignified residential address, while the more public side on Circular Quay is dynamic and playful.
When seen from the Cahill Expressway by vehicle or on foot, the softly folded glass facade enhances the perception of movement.
Opera Residences enriches the public domain at Circular Quay and on Macquarie Street in a precinct that includes the world heritage listed SOH and Fort Denison with Sydney Harbour nearby.
The architecture is formed by a deep appreciation of the role and responsibility of new development in the precinct and has contributed to the advancement of the use of glass in apartment design.
Opera Residences reflects the standards of design excellence set out by the City of Sydney development controls when it established the competition brief for the selection of the architect.
Project: Opera Residences
Architects: Tzannes
Design Team: Alec Tzannes, Ben Green, Kimberley Merlino, Luke No- votny, Kate Nason, Katharine Turner, Kevin Mak, Ben Guthrie, Isabella Mo- ran, Miguel Gilarte, Jessie Spencer, Julia Duerr, Sarah Reid, Samuel Mok, Elanor Hyland-Falle, Carl Holder, Juliana Conceicao, Lyndsey Fitz-Ger- ald, Derek Chin, Georgina Blix, and Amanda Roberts
Executive Architects: Crone Architects
Residential Interiors Architect: MAKE
Landscape Architects: Oculus
General Contractor: Richard Crookes Constructions
Client: Landream Australia Land Pty Ltd.
Photographers: Martin Mischkulnig
