 | AIR Poised above a shopping centre at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, Air is a sophisticated residential tower by Ian Moore Architects.
REVIEW Andrew Wilson
PHOTOGRAPHY Rocket Mattler
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The west elevation
of Air, a 37-storey
residential tower, above
the existing Oasis
shopping centre at
Broadbeach on the Gold
Coast.
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The balconies
of the satellite tower
provide deep modelling
to the facade, while
motorized, vertical,
aluminium louvres
reduce glare.
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View
of the tower from the
north-west showing the
articulation between the
two primary elements.
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Looking from a
penthouse apartment
into a private courtyard.
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The spacious living
area with impressive
views over the Gold
Coast.
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The kitchen in
a double-storey
penthouse apartment.
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A bedroom in a
penthouse apartment.
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Standard kitchen in
a tower apartment.
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A typical apartment
balcony, showing the
motorized aluminium
louvres.
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The east elevation of
the tower, which rises
above a two-storey
horizontal bar
containing penthouse
apartments. This
element serves as a
visual transition from
the existing shopping
centre podium to the
new tower.
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The pool deck seen with
the new tower behind.
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Broadbeach seen from an
apartment balcony.
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Detail of the striking yellow
western facade.
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In 1957 the newly constructed Lennon’s
International Broadbeach Hotel, designed by
Austrian émigré architect Karl Langer, loomed
as a large, lonely form on the broad swathe of
sand-mined dune at the heart of the coastal strip
of the Gold Coast. Completely isolated from any
existing built context and far from the established
coastal townships of Southport and Coolangatta, it
was an alien object in a depleted territory seemingly
waiting for something to happen.
Recognizing that significant postwar growth had
triggered radical changes to the region, in 1959 the
January–March issue of Architecture in Australia
(precursor to Architecture Australia) was a special
issue on the Gold Coast. Its cover featured the
striking graphic of a folding, golden, ribbon-like
coastal strip that incorporated the Nerang River and
its islands, heralding the theme of ocean and river
frontage. With the first canal estates already
underway, this issue attempted to examine the state
of play, appropriate models for the Gold Coast to
emulate, and issues needing to be addressed as a
result of the rapid development of this popular
coastal holiday destination south of Brisbane.
The urban footprint of the contemporary city is a
consequence of fifty years of subsequent speculative
development. Since the completion of the
Broadbeach Hotel this growth has enveloped the
once-isolated site. Pressure on the coastal edge has
generated the linear high-rise zone that starts to
thicken at Broadbeach through to Southport.
This zone lies adjacent and parallel to the broad,
artificial, labyrinthine canal zone that spreads out
from the Nerang River at the southern end of the
city. Today the city limit, formed from an
amalgamation of the Gold Coast and Albert Shire in
1995, is intersected by the Pacific Motorway. It is
strung out along 57 kilometres of coastline, broken
in steady rhythm by headlands and embedded with
remnants of river flood plain extending back to the
verdant, hilly hinterland behind.
This is the context for Air, the 37-storey
residential tower designed by Ian Moore Architects,
located opposite Kurrawa Surf Club on Old Burleigh
Road at Broadbeach. The new tower literally fuses
with the Oasis shopping centre at the beach front
of the block, which was once the site of the
Broadbeach Hotel. The shopping centre is connected
by monorail to Conrad Jupiters Casino on
Broadbeach Island on the other side of the Gold
Coast Highway – and the monorail’s turning circle
perches on the shopping centre roof.
Air is an elegant recent addition to the Gold
Coast City skyline, which successfully negotiates a
complex set of pre-existing site conditions. The
T-figure schema of the residential tower is composed
of a broad, thin, lozenge-shaped block of one- and
two-level apartments facing the ocean, and a square
satellite tower uniformly containing one apartment
per floor plate and cantilevering to claim available
air space over the shopping centre behind. This
residential tower – together with a hovering
horizontal bar of two-level penthouses strategically
carved into to provide air, light and balconies as
well as residual covered outdoor space – yields 134
apartments. The bar element sits over the monorail
turning circle above the podium, mediating between
it and the residential tower. The lift core connecting
the lozenge-shaped block to the satellite tower is
positioned within the turning circle and forms the
structural spine of the building. The brief also
included a gymnasium and health club and
landscaped gardens with swimming pools and
a tennis court at podium roof level.
Oblique views from the street reveal the complex
slotted form of this hybrid tower sitting proud of its
set-back neighbours, addressing the ocean and
giving some definition to the space of the street.
From the surf club the ensemble reads as an L-figure
in elevation, with the apartment tower rising over
the north end of the three-level podium banded in
green glass. This podium orchestrates entrances to
the shopping centre and the totally internalized
world of its circulation atrium beyond. The curved
northern end sets up a diagonal shopping centre
entry, with the guard rail of the monorail breaking
through the top band of the podium above.
Seen from the beach the tower is dismembered
from this podium, which is edited out of the view
by the surf club and associated landscape. It flattens
out to reveal subtle patchwork variations in the
treatment of balcony zones. The structural frame
gives another layer of variation and is inlaid with
metallic grillage working in tandem with glazing
systems to infill the balconies on the lower flanks.
However, a total flattening of the form is held in
abeyance and the building holds our interest
through the subtle tension between the graphic
registration of the varying structural frame
competing with the horizontal lines of the balcony
edge and the patchwork of flush grillage and glazing
system inlay. The strategic wrapping of the
balconies around the creased lozenge form
introduces a further level of subtlety: the folded,
serrated edge that registers in oblique views from
a distance and is amplified at closer range.
The experience of the form front-on is in sharp
contrast to available views of the back. The view
from the pool deck reveals the tower expressed in
vertical patchwork bands that from this angle take
on the quality not of an object, but rather of
vertically folded or pleated parallel surfaces.
Balconies are expressed as a serrated add-on. The
rear face of the lozenge-shaped tower either side of
the lift core is clad in distinctive reflective yellow
composite aluminium panels forming spandrels
between horizontal strip glazing to the units, then
shaded by motorized aluminium louvres. These
louvres are flush with the spandrel panels to achieve
sunshading in this vertical plane. The materiality of
the satellite tower reads as a recomposition of the
materials of the front face of the lozenge into
uniform bands. At the same time the quality of
subtle patchwork effect is maintained.
The architects claim that passive environmental
strategies provide year-round comfort and low
energy consumption. The uniformly
one-apartment-deep configurations in both towers
allow the potential for cross ventilation and for all
apartments to take in a range of views to the sea,
hinterland and north or south across the city. A view
is even available from the north-facing lift lobbies,
which look across the field of apartment towers
towards Surfers Paradise. All the apartments in the
lozenge focus on the view to the ocean. Mezzanine
accommodation of bedrooms in the two-storey
configuration allows the living space to occupy
the whole volume, thereby opening up the entire
space to the view. In contrast, the one-level
apartments in the satellite tower afford a view
towards Surfers Paradise, and the editing of a
panoramic view from ocean to hinterland mediated
by the applied horizontal and vertical motorized
aluminium louvres.
This residential tower is arguably the most
sophisticated and innovative recent apartment
development in south-east Queensland.
It demonstrates that working with a developer
does not mean that the design outcome need be
compromised or assume the lowest common
denominator. The role of Gold Coast City Architect
Philip Follent in facilitating and supporting this
project needs to be acknowledged and applauded.
While clearly a very specific response to complex
site conditions, the vertical stacking of architectural
programme and infrastructure might provide clues
to another kind of density that could facilitate
dealing with the projected population increase in
south-east Queensland and elsewhere.
ANDREW WILSON IS A LECTURER IN ARCHITECTURE AT THE
QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL
OF NMBW QUEENSLAND OFFICE.
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AIR, BROADBEACH,
QUEENSLAND
Architect Ian Moore
Architects—principal
architect Ian Moore;
project architect
Manuelle Schelp;
project team James
Curry, Tina Engelen,
Penny Fuller, Will Fung,
Jeanette Hansen, Helen
Stumbaum. Project
manager Vantage
Project Management.
Interior design Ian
Moore Architects.
Builder Barclay
Mowlem. Structural
engineer Whaley
Consulting Group.
Mechanical and
electrical engineer EMF
Griffiths Consulting
Engineers. Hydraulic
consultant Dennis
Cairns & Associates.
Cost consultant Rider
Hunt. Acoustic engineer
Acoustic Logic
Consultancy. Landscape
architect McLeod
Landscape Architects.
Planning consultant
Humphreys, Reynolds
and Perkins. Building
code consultant Gold
Coast Certification
Group. Graphic
designer Sexty Design/Wishart Design. Client
Thakral Developments.
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