New workplace for mirvac HQ

Sydney’s city skyline has a new, gold-hued tower among its sparkling silver skyscrapers. 200 George, where Mirvac’s new HQ is based, is a 37-storey office building, quite unlike its predecessors.

Driving southbound across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the 200 George tower will likely catch your eye. Pitched to the left of the Four Seasons Hotel, its curved golden exterior beams out across Circular Quay. The buildings’ striking, warm hue is achieved by an innovative closed-cavity façade with built-in timber blinds. 200 George is the first of a new class of ‘smart’ skyscrapers that feature technology to monitor air quality, power and water usage.

The building is home to the new Sydney HQ of Mirvac – with Mirvac enlisting Davenport Campbell to imagine a new, progressive workspace for its six floors at 200 George. “It’s not often you get a chance as a designer to create something that has the potential to remarkable transform the way an organisation works,” says Neill Johanson, co-principal at Davenport Campbell and head designer on the project.

“The first thing we did was to develop a Living Lab or pilot space,” Johanson explains. “This experiment, if you like, of putting people into a mini version of the HQ project was an effective way of testing new ideas, prior to whole heartily committing the next step… Both the 200 George Street and the HQ workplace are the next generation of integrated intelligent building and workspace. No other place provides the building owner, tenant and guest with access to so much information about sustainability, utilisation and efficiency.”