_Crown Sydney: the arrival of an icon

1. Leaving no stone unturned

Over 80 natural stone types including marbles and granite types were sourced from all corners of the globe for Crown Sydney with over 85,000 sqm of stone used throughout the property.

Image: Crown Towers Sydney located on 1 Barangaroo Avenue, Barangaroo

From Italy and Greece to South America and China, every single piece of stone adorning the hotel, its opulent spaces and 82 extraordinary residences were handpicked by Crown Resorts’ Todd Nisbet, interior designer Meyer Davis’ Will Meyer and Chris Wilkinson from Wilkinson Eyre Architects. The sourcing trips to quarries saw them clambering over marble boulders to select the exact pieces they wanted, making Crown Sydney as close to ‘handmade’ as a skyscraper can get.

Image: Will Meyer (Meyer Davis), Chris Wilkinson (WilkinsonEyre) and Todd Nisbet (Crown Resorts) in Trevi, Italy selecting the marble for the One Barangaroo project

In the Residences, sitting atop the hotel portion of the tower, marble from European locations such as Italy and Greece bring to the life the stunning design details imagined by Meyer Davis. Take for instance, the soothing hues of the pearly white Italian marble that grace the lift lobby and corridor upon entry or the entertainer’s kitchen, which immediately draws the eye within the Residences, showcasing a striking mix of Mont Blanc natural quartzite and Belvedere stone from Carrara in Italy.

Image: Crown Residences kitchen 

This carries through to the open-plan living room and feature vanity and powder room walls showcasing moody Calacatta Cielo stone, also from Carrara.

Image: Crown Residences powder room 

Soft white Volakas and Elba Blue marble from Thessaloniki, Greece, enhance the generous proportions of the master and secondary bathrooms, paired with unmistakable Noir St Laurent marble from Xiamen, China for the double vanities in the master en-suite.

Image: Crown Residences master en-suite bathroom 

2. Sydney's first damper lives atop the 275m tower

From being Australia’s first hospitality-branded residential offering, Crown Sydney has enjoyed a string of firsts and can now boast another - the first and only high-rise building in Sydney to have a computerised mass-tuned damper sitting on top of it.

Image: the top of Crown Sydney's 71-storey tower housing a 250 tonne steel damper

Made up of two hundred and fifty tonnes of concrete and steel, suspended from beams and supported by hydraulics, the ‘mass-tuned damper’ as engineers refer to it, lives in the glass canopy at the very peak of the tower; a common mechanism found in towers oversees, like Taipei 101, London Millennium Bridge or 432 Park Avenue, but relatively unseen in Australian construction. This damper, connected to a telemetric system, senses any movement in the top of the building caused by winds or atmospheric pressure and responds with equal force in the opposite direction to maintain the tower’s centre of gravity.

These highly-calibrated micro-movements of a giant mass cancel out the force of the wind and atmospheric pressure, reducing the amount of potential sway by as much as 80% and leaving the tower exactly where it was – and always will be.

Image: the Barangaroo precinct from Sydney harbour with the realisation of Crown Towers Sydney

3. Over 120 species including shrubs, trees and succulents were locally grown for the development

To espouse a resort atmosphere in the middle of Sydney’s CBD, Crown Resorts engaged landscape architect Dennis Selinger of St Legere, who took his design inspiration from the cantilevered pools overlooking the cliffs of Bali. Thinking ahead, Crown pre-ordered and pre-planted most of the landscaping, a combination of local and exotic species from local horticultural specialists around the country, just months after the building’s plans were approved. The result: the landscaping on the resort’s two pool terraces and surrounding gardens are already four years old on opening day.

Image: the residents pool on level 6, overlooking the hotel guest pool and harbour below 

The amenities levels exhibit lush greenery enveloping the pools and private wellness areas, while more than 120 different types of beautiful florals and colourful exotic plants can be found inhabiting thoughtfully considered pockets throughout the resort, among them a 60-year-old fig tree playing gatekeeper on the wharf foreshore.

Image: residents-pool which is heated all-year round with private cabanas and spa 

4. Building it piece by piece

Over 8,000 pieces of uniquely sized glass panels veil the tower and podium structures, giving Crown Sydney her ever-changing and one-of-a-kind appearance. 

Image: the reflective curved glass façade of the tower, comprised of more than 8,000 pieces of glass 

Every panel of glass bears a serial number to correctly identify its position and orientation in the building. This serial number is critical, as not one panel is interchangeable with another. Each panel of glass was cast in China, then delivered to a foundry in South Korea which produced a metal frame to match exactly. The panel was carefully installed and secured into the matching metal frame, before being shipped to Sydney Harbour, where it was unloaded, tested and checked, then winched into its specific place and bolted to the external frame of the tower. It is a process that was repeated 8,100 times.

Of this design approach, Todd Nisbet, Crown Resorts said: “Chris Wilkinson is very particular about glass in his buildings, and he wanted Crown Sydney to be very special, in that regard." He gave the team a shortlist of glass coatings and colour gradients to choose from but, rather than picking one and hoping it would work, the development team conducted a test.

“They cut open a shipping container and replaced one side with the sample glass panels, then hoisted it, on a crane, 80 feet above the building site, rotating it slowly to catch the light at different times of the day. The team observed the glass panels for almost two weeks, in all weather conditions, before settling on the final choice for all 8100 panels.

“Months later, when the first half of the building went up and crews started to install the glass panels of the façade, the team began to wonder if they’d got it wrong. The panels are angled down on the bottom third, so it was just reflecting the ground and the water. It looked a bit dark. But as each week went by, the building got a little taller, the panels started to straighten up and then angle towards the sky, the building just came alive. Now, every evening you can see Crown Sydney perform a whole new dance with the sky and the clouds and the light. It’s quite incredible.”

Image: no matter what time of day, the exterior of Crown Sydney reflects the beauty of its surrounds

5. Light it up

Close to 35,000 lights illuminate Crown Sydney, welcoming guests and visitors to the resort now open.

Image: Crown Towers Sydney hotel reception, featuring custom design-feature check-in desks by Rich Creations

Across Crown’s 14 signature bars and restaurants to the luxurious hotel amenities on offer, there tallies 21,105 downlights, 11,772 linear fixtures and 2,065 spotlights lighting up the resort.

Image: the building's feature chandelier and staircase spanning levels 2 to 6 of the hotel podium

From the moment guests and residents step out from the porte cochere to their respective sojourn destinations, their experience will be enhanced by these lights created in collaboration with Preciosa, responsible for the bespoke blown glass chandelier with 396 crystal-clad blades visible the moment guests step into the hotel lobby, and hundreds of custom lighting fixtures throughout Crown Sydney.

Image: Preciosa's custom blown glass chandelier, designed for Crown Sydney 

6. A resort tipped on its side

Close to 100,000 cubic meters of high-strength concrete was poured to make up the super-structures of Crown Towers Sydney – the equivalent of about 40 times the size of the average Olympic swimming pool.

Image (supplied by George Apostolidis): a luxury resort completely unrivalled at Crown Towers Sydney 

The tower’s super structures are comprised of the basement, podium and tower in a smaller footprint compared to Crown’s other properties in Melbourne and Perth. Where a luxury resort would typically be spread out over several hectares, Crown Sydney’s contents are tipped over on its side and placed across 71 floors inside a 275-metre tall twisting glass tower, going against the traditional method of skyscraper design.

The lowest portion of the tower, the basement, houses underground parking, connecting to the porte cochere where guests and residents alike can take advantage of the valet services, complimentary for homeowners, alongside 24/7 security and their own personal concierge.

Image: tower lookdown showing the hotel pool with bookable cabanas, luxurious sun lounges and plush day beds

The podium consisting of levels 1 to 6 is where lifestyle amenities can be found from the state-of-the-art gymnasium, Blainey-North designed spa, two infinity’s-edge swimming pools and outdoor yoga deck, as well as an international line-up boasting restaurants such as Nobu, a'Mare, Woodcut and other Crown favourites.

Image: hotel lift lobby for Crown Towers Sydney

The tower, the heart of Crown Sydney, is home to the hotel rooms and villas, and ultra-luxurious apartments on levels 33 to 65 who will benefit from total privacy and uninterrupted views. Starting from a height of 133m above sea level, it's as though one is practically hovering over the harbour.

Image: unbeatable views of Sydney's icon the Harbour Bridge, as seen from a Crown Residence 

7. Game, set, match

As guests charge their glasses in the grand ballroom and the room falls silent, waiting for the mother of the bride to make her speech, no one would ever know that a visiting professional tennis player is firing serves directly onto the roof above them, at speeds of up to 230 kilometres per hour.

The reason for this dissonance? Springs. Hundreds of them, in a vast array, sitting on top of the reinforced concrete slab, beneath a steel plate, upon which the regulation tennis court surface sits. These massive steel springs keep the court perfectly flat and perfectly level while absorbing every single vibration. Without it, there’s a chance the thwack of the ball would transmit a low-volume, low-frequency sound, into the ballroom below. Most people would never hear it, but some would. Crown wanted to be absolutely certain that ‘some’ was reduced to ‘none’.

Leaving those in the sumptuous ballroom below, perhaps one of the most impressive of the hotel’s boundless private spaces, to continue revelling in the moments of their event while the other guests and residents, who have priority access to the tennis court, advance their afternoon game whilst taking in the Sydney’s harbour views surrounding them.

Image: as seen from the skies - the pavilion, tennis court, two pools and wharf promenade at Crown Sydney 

A birds-eye view will reveal the tennis court mural by Indigenous artist Rekko Rennie who was specially commissioned by Crown Resorts to create an eye-catching piece for Sydney’s best tennis court.

Image: the creation of Australian artist Rekko Rennie's abstract mural on the hotel tennis court 

8. The complexity of build

In terms of architecture, the defining feature of Crown Sydney is the twist of the building. Its function: to render every single floor unique: in shape, in aspect, in column placement and in layout. For a building engineer, this lack of repetition creates new problems to solve on every floor, with no shortcuts available, no efficiencies of scale to be harvested, no improvement borne of repetition. Every floor must be engineered as it were its own project, yet remain cohesive to the entire structure, requiring some incredible feats of cutting-edge technology and a completely bespoke approach to construction by builders Lendlease.

Image: helical pillars feature throughout Crown Sydney to support the load of twisting floors. In the Residences, these are clad in stainless steel as pictured

For the fortunate few who will call the tower home from April 2021, this means their Residences are completely different to that of their neighbours in every sense of the word - configuration, size, shape and aspect. For those who secured their skyhomes early and were able to make certain customisations, they too had a hand in the formation of a landmark building such as Crown Sydney.

9. An icon for all

Crown Sydney has been intended as a building for all Sydneysiders to enjoy. Whether it’s appreciating the architecture while walking in Hickson Park, dining on the outdoor terrace of one of the world-class restaurants or waking up to the icons from one’s apartment, there is much on offer at the 1 Barangaroo Address.

Image: Crown Towers Sydney by night, as seen from King Street Wharf 

In a tribute to the city and the landmark that now defines it, an observation deck has been built on level 83, offering stunning views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Open to the public strictly via an allocated ticketing system, Sydneysiders will be able to visit the top of the tower, taking in the penultimate views of everything below, from coast to quay while learning about the journey to build a skyscraper like Crown Sydney.

Image: views from level 66, Crown Sydney's observation SkyDeck 

10. The almost impossible made possible 

In any other decade, construction of a curved tower such as this would be impossible. As architect Chris Wilkinson has described it, the engineering challenge of bringing his daring twisting petal design to life was ‘almost impossible’ and initially, he was not even sure it could be built. It is only due to considerable advancements in engineering and sophisticated computer modelling in the last decade that construction of Crown Sydney is now complete.

Whilst the 82 residences are entirely unique, the one common design detail running through all of them and the spaces of Crown Sydney below are stainless steel-clad helical columns, supporting each of the 71 floors as they change orientation slightly, delivering the tower’s signature curvature.

Image: the tower's signature columns, wrapped in stainless steel in the apartments to reflect and capture the surrounding abode

Once deemed an impossible feat. Now, it is a reality and finally here. 

Watch the latest film below to see Crown Sydney as it now stands. 

For more information, please contact:

Erin van Tuil

Partner, Crown Residences at One Barangaroo

erin.vantuil@au.knightfrank.com

+61 409 325 700