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Architects: Jackson Clements Burrows
- Area: 29300 m²
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:John Gollings, Tom Blachford
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Lead Architects: Graham Burrows
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Engineering & Consulting: Altitude, McKenzie Group, WRAP Engineering, Phillip Chun, du Chateau Chun
Text description provided by the architects. The client came to us with an ambitious brief – to design a mass timber office building that aligned with its T3 corporate strategy, which focuses on transit, timber, and technology and was developed in response to growing demand for local authenticity, sustainability, and urban and social connectivity. The challenge lay in marrying this brief with Collingwood’s rich industrial context, characterized by elegant warehouses, narrow streets, vibrant arts precincts, and an evolving, progressive demographic.
Our design draws on this distinctive context to create a building comprising a 5-level brick and concrete podium with a 10-12 19-level lightweight mass timber structure perched above. A contextual response as well as a direct reflection of the building’s structural composition. The brick podium sleeves into its streetscape scale, while the glazed curtain wall tower above speaks to an emerging typology of residential/commercial buildings in the immediate surrounds. A defining move was to align the northern façade of the podium with a heritage building to the east, creating a wider ground plane with a generous arrival and civic quality. The tower forms above cantilevers over this setback to define an entry pathway.
The use of red brick in the podium, terracotta in the window shades, and curtain wall shading fins in the upper façade creates a singular, confident color block response. This honest, industrial, and robust material palette continues internally, with a palette of brick, galvanized metal, concrete, and timber throughout. The program resolution focuses on providing efficient, functional, and flexible floorplates with excellent access to light and amenities.
Amenity includes ground floor food & beverage offerings and EOT facilities, with terraces created as the building form steps back progressively at higher levels. A warm timber aesthetic creates calm interiors, with strong biophilic connections nurturing a sense of occupant well-being not typically associated with high-rise office buildings. The highly efficient floorplates capitalise on the mass timber grid and provide optimum flexibility for future tenancy fit outs. An imperative of the design was that it maximised yield, which in turn supported the additional construction cost uplift of a mass timber system.
The brief stipulated the delivery of a mass timber building at a height that hadn’t previously been delivered within Victoria/Australia. Meeting approval authority challenges required extensive consultant coordination and integration, with the team working closely to test multiple grid layouts and extensive fire engineering modeling and testing. Multiple structural and hybrid systems were tested to validate the final design solution. This involved extensive modeling with cost/value outcomes at every step to ensure the design was cost-effective. Sustainability was a central focus.
The design sought to deliver a thermally efficient high-performing building that is low carbon and low-cost to operate. T3 has been awarded a 6-star Green Star (Design), and its mass-timber construction, sourced ethically from local renewable forests, contains 34% less embodied carbon than an equivalent concrete structure. Reflecting the objectives of the developer and design team, the project’s completion signals a shift to a new generation of carbon-conscious commercial spaces.
