443 Queen St | WOHA with Architectus & Kris Kowalski Architects

Buildings That Breathe

This tower exemplifies best-practice climate-responsive design, delivering genuinely breathable residential living through a highly permeable, nature-integrated form. A separated floor plate enables true “sky homes” as independent dwellings, maximising building perimeter and orientation to achieve excellent cross-ventilation, abundant daylight and expansive views. Shared lobbies on every level are continuously naturally ventilated and enriched with landscaping, light wells, sky terraces and vertical greenery, strengthening connections to nature while reducing reliance on mechanical conditioning.
The car park is fully naturally ventilated and incorporates integrated planting to improve air quality and user experience while lowering energy demand. At ground level, the building enhances permeability at both urban and riverside scales through a new cross-block link that activates the public realm. As the first residential building to achieve a 6 Star Green Star rating, the project demonstrates exemplary environmental performance and delivers a resilient, people-centred building that truly breathes.

Commendation for Residential Architecture - Multiple Housing

443 Queen Street proposes a new model for high-rise living through a permeable, subtropical approach. Its porous podium restores visual and physical connections between Queen Street and the river, creating shaded public spaces and a clear address to the Riverwalk. The building exploits Brisbane’s benign climate with generous outdoor rooms, robust planting and entry breezeways that heighten the experience of coming home. Naturally ventilated and finely climatically tuned, it sets a new benchmark for dense inner-city multi-residential architecture. 

Sustainability shortlist, Art and Architecture shortlist

Award for Sustainable Architecture

443 Queen Street establishes a new precedent for subtropical high-density living by translating the breezy, climate-responsive qualities of Brisbane’s traditional Queenslander homes into a contemporary residential tower. The project is Australia’s first residential tower to achieve a remarkable 6 Star Green Star design and as built rating. Achieving what many thought impossible for a tower, the project delivers 100% natural ventilation to all 264 apartments, enabling complete cross-ventilation and reducing reliance on mechanical cooling. 

Natural materials, low-VOC finishes, and locally manufactured fittings enhance indoor environmental quality while reducing embodied impacts. Extensive vertical gardens, native planting, rainwater harvesting, and adaptive cooling systems support biodiversity, resilience, resource efficiency, and long-term resident wellbeing. At a policy level, the building has assisted in shaping and exemplifying Brisbane City Council’s “Buildings that Breathe” policy. 443 Queen Street provides a redefinition of what is achievable in subtropical residential design, an impact that will be felt across Queensland for decades to come

The Job & Froud Award for Residential Architecture - Multiple Housing

443 Queen Street establishes a new precedent for subtropical high-density living, by incorporating climate, landscape, and wellbeing as essential ingredients of multi-residential architecture. Designed as a contemporary interpretation of Brisbane’s traditional Queenslander, the project delivers qualities of operability, natural ventilation, and connection to landscape, typically associated with detached housing.  

The tower employs a highly permeable, climate-responsive design that prioritises natural light, breeze, and outdoor living. A separated floor plate creates genuine “sky homes”, maximising building perimeter and orientation while enabling 100% cross-ventilation to every apartment through operable windows in all rooms alongside naturally ventilated circulation cores. Together the planning fundamentally reshapes conventional residential tower design and sets a new high bar for apartment living.  

Landscape is core to the architecture, extending communal areas through gardens, sky terraces, and vertical greenery. An elevated urban verandah and cross-block connection reconnect lost public access through to the Brisbane River.  

The influence of 443 Queen Street is already felt beyond the site, contributing to policy and discourse across Queensland. It is clear the impact of 443 Queen Street will be felt for years to come, as an enduring model for climate-responsive residential architecture across Queensland and Australia.