Trevor Mein Archives - Australian Institute of Architects

Blue & William | Woods Bagot

Blue & William reimagines the modern workplace in a post pandemic world.

Over 10 carefully considered levels, it’s a midscale commercial building set on the southwest edge of North Sydney’s CBD designed by Woods Bagot to celebrate location and maximise the stunning Sydney Harbour and city views.

Terracotta, kiln fired and glazed in a reddish ochre finish, frames each oversized 3.6m x 3.6m floor to ceiling window, while the building’s form is enhanced by a series of cascading terraces that magnify the panorama, open the building up and enabling staff to work outside if they want.

Inside, visitors are greeted by rich landscape and materiality drawn from the public spaces on Blue Street into the light filled lobby and wellness garden, bringing the outside in, enabling users to connect with nature.

Sustainability is central to the design with Blue & William achieving 5 Green Star Rating and a 5.5 NABERS Energy certification.

Adelaide Street House | Robert Simeoni Architects

This house at 27 Adelaide Street was imagined as an occupied ruin, allowing it to parallel and frame the internal life and graceful aging of a young family in place.

The house is expressed externally as a series of concrete forms aligning with the proportions and scale of the street, and is broken by lightweight infill that expresses its internal occupation, together achieving a balanced composition of solidity and transparency.

The concrete continues internally, framing views that are orientated inwards between spaces and onto the central courtyard which is used to bring northern light deep into the linear plan, moderate the scale of the building from the surrounding context, and minimise reliance on outward openings that reduces overlooking and solar heat gain. Highlevel windows at the upper storey gesture to the sky, further reducing views outward in favour of upward.