Architectus and Singaporean based practice WOHA were commissioned to undertake Queensland’s first truly subtropical apartment tower, 443 Queen Street. The tower is designed for our climate to catch the breezes and shade from the sun, designed as a habitable, living subtropical garden, designed to deliver the aspirations of the Brisbane City Centre Master Plan (BCC CCMP).

Offering to the city a generous and welcoming public domain that creates a strong link between city streets and river edge, 443 Queen Street opens and frames important vistas, allowing the free flow of pedestrians from city to river and creating great riverside places for all.

New and generous public walkways, gathering places, viewing places and active places are achieved by minimising the footprint of the building at Queen Street level and raising and shaping the superstructure to maximise views.

A unique and locally responsive plan, form and language has been developed. The carpark and ground plane elements are inspired by the natural riverside topography - the cliffs of Kangaroo Point, expressed as strata naturally rising from the river edge.

The towers themselves rise airily above this abstract landform; clusters of screened pavilions forming fluted columns. These vertical clusters encase the open floating gardens at the heart, the textured cliff language continuing all the way to the pinnacles.

The building is not ‘business as usual’ with a sustainability overlay, but is designed from first principles, and from the very first day, as a ‘building that breathes.’

Project Sheet

• Project Sheet