A 1960s strata-titled office building located in the heritage precinct of Sydney’s prestigious Macquarie Street has undergone an holistic transformation comprising services upgrade, new facade and additional rooftop floorspace that provides sweeping uninterrupted views.

Architectus was engaged to design the retro-refit of 225 Macquarie Street, Sydney which provides office accommodation for many of Sydney’s legal professionals and is home to the Land and Environment Court. The design of the complete building solution, which comprised an environmental, fire, BCA, PCA, facade and entry foyer upgrade, was carefully crafted to ensure minimum impact on the tenants and continued building functionality whilst providing a premium upgrade.

Through extensive investigations of the existing building, Architectus identified the opportunity to adaptively re-use the vacant rooftop plantrooms into new premium office space. The new top floor, which is accessed via extensions to the existing lifts, provided the building owners with 350 m² of new office floorspace with generous floorto-ceiling height windows, two outdoor terraces, and a sale price which funded the entire building  refurbishment.

A new double-glazed full height stripwindow system with external vertical louvres at the facade protects the building from the low eastern sun and minimises heat load to the floorplates whilst maintaining access to views.

Project Sheet

• Project Sheet