175 Eagle Street

Our brief was to create a place where tenants choose to linger, work and network – a place that serves as an extension of their workplace, injecting a much-needed sense of energy to the ground plane. Looking beyond the typical material palette, we were challenged to produce a design that responded to context and re-imagined what was possible in a commercial lobby space.

The journey of spatial experience from main lobby, through lift lobby and into lift cars, changes both in scale and tone, moving from light and airy with grey marble, soft pinks and forest green velvet, to the saturated tones of black and brass. The outcome is to create a subconscious shift in mood as guests transition from the bustle of the city to the workplace. A varied landscape of working, dining and lounge furniture creates a sophisticated, active space and adds valuable amenity. A bespoke veil of pendants creates a feeling of intimacy within the grand proportions of the lobby.

Cox has embraced a true blurring of hospitality, residential and commercial genres in this space. The space provides the intimacy of your own lounge room, the formality and service of a hotel style concierge and the corporate amenity of a city tower. Even within what is essentially a transitional space we’ve been able to create appropriate zones to provide for these new modes of working, interacting, chance encounters, sidebar discussion and of course, aiding the frictionless transition from street to desk for the Tower’s denizens.

The design team collaborated extensively with an engaged client to ensure that the design fully embraced the building’s enviable river front location. The client was keen to explore the use of a new material for the cladding of the buildings lift core. A striking, organic 5 metre-high GRC curtain was designed, strengthening its connection to the river, while appearing to be feather-light. Viewed from the street, the restrained approach to lighting and furniture sits comfortably against the external backdrop of the river’s edge and historic customs house. Reflecting of developments in both technology and workplace best practice, hitherto underused and undervalued interstitial spaces now offer genuine corporate utility and user benefit.