 | Q1 PODIUM The swirling canopy and clearly organized programme of the Q1 podium, by Innovarchi, make a significant contribution to the urban environment of Surfers Paradise.
REVIEW Andrew Wilson
PHOTOGRAPHY Russell Shakespeare Peter Hyatt
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Inclined props
support the unfurling
canopy ribbons at the
entry to the Q1 tower.
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Q1 towering above
surrounding buildings
at Surfers Paradise.
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The glazed canopy
of the Q1 podium, with
conference blocks
projecting below.
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The study model of the
glass canopy. Architects,
engineers and the
prefabrication team all used
this model to finetune the
canopy.
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Overview of
canopy ribbons wrapping
around the base of the Q1
tower. Photograph Peter Hyatt.
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Protected public spaces
beneath the swirling canopy,
with shopfronts providing a
static counterpoint.
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At 323 metres, the eighty-storey Q1 apartment tower
at Surfers Paradise is significantly taller than the
surrounding field of towers, and forms a highly
visible sculptural landmark. At the base the effect
is equally dramatic. Here, the tower’s podium retail
precinct, designed by Sydney-based practice
Innovarchi, clearly enhances the urban space on the
periphery of Gold Coast City, which has historically
born the brunt of poor development.
The brief for the podium encompassed a
two-storey retail and conference facility, an
overarching glazed canopy, the main entrance and
lobby, facades to level three of the tower, interior
design of the Q1 store, and landscape concepts.
The most striking aspect of the realized project
is the teardrop canopy that wraps around the tower
and is skewed to the block, echoing the boat-like
geometry of the Stockland/Buchan Group tower
plan. Comprised of rings of angled, aluminium-clad
ribbons, it provides weather protection and is
aligned with the height of adjacent buildings at the
northern end. As an urban gesture, it links the
diverse elements around the periphery of the city
block, clearly organizing competing addresses – the
Q1 main entry, observation deck entry, car park
entrance, retail and conference address, as well as
a separate beach entrance for tower residents.
Innovarchi established the concept for the
project from an interest in the airflow diagrams
generated by objects in wind tunnel testing. The
project was developed using physical and virtual
modelling, and a virtual 3D scripting procedure
allowed the adjustment and finetuning of the
relatively complex canopy. A single model was
used by the architects, the engineers and the
prefabrication team who used the data set embedded
in the model in the fabrication process. Glass
thickness within the canopy was critical to keeping
the project on budget and determined the
4 x 2.4-metre glass panel module.
Readings of the resulting ribbon form of the
canopy oscillate, depending on one’s location in
relation to it: from one vantage point it appears as
an over-scaled uncoiling spring, from another as a
fragment of a giant rotor blade.
The success of this project lies, paradoxically,
in the relatively sparse programming of the podium
zone, which creates shaded public space incisions
that permeate all faces of the city block. Setting the
canopy as a datum at the height of adjacent
buildings gives an austerity underneath. This lends
the project an abstract spatial quality that echoes the
varied context of restaurants, remnant shopping
strip and generic high-rise.
The shops and conference facility blocks provide
a static counterpoint to the dynamism of the canopy
overhead. Located at the southern corner, these
blocks sit proud of the canopy in an arcing
horizontal sweep. At street level, the ground floor
houses elegantly framed, transparent shopfronts.
Over the top runs a wide band of grey aluminium
panels, incised with four horizontal fixed glazing
strips over the charcoal rectangular return of the
conference centre at the Hamilton Avenue end.
The section of the conference facilities blocks and
the canopy ribbons is revealed when approaching
the main entrance to the Q1 tower in Hamilton
Avenue, to which the canopy acts as porte-cochere.
Three elegant inclined struts mark this shadowy
space, which has been finely tuned to facilitate
transport and pedestrian circulation. The car park
entrance is adjacent but out of view. The foyer, a
layering of nine-metre-high glazed skins, creates an
atmospheric transition zone between the apartments
above and the world of sun and surf beyond.
At the northern corner of the block is the
diagonal entrance to the Q1 observation deck. This
deck, at level 77 of the tower, gives spectacular
panoramic views of the Gold Coast and the ocean.
The tower form is scalloped out at this point, but the
canopy stubbornly follows the line of the oval figure
implicit in the plan, creating a small, lens-shaped
plaza adjacent to the entry. This plaza is extended
by an asymmetrical cut through the retail
component, leaving a retail fragment to the north
and a curving galleria to the south. This galleria of
restaurants and shops allows movement between
the observation deck entry and the Q1 main entry
behind the street.
The Q1 podium makes a major contribution
at street level, through the range of experiences
it orchestrates and the range of ways it can be
experienced as the city unfolds. In this way, it
exceeds its brief. Further, this project graphically
demonstrates a positive outcome of Gold Coast
City’s high expectations for future urban space.
ANDREW WILSON IS A LECTURER IN ARCHITECTURE AT THE
QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL
OF NMBW QUEENSLAND OFFICE.
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Q1 TOWER PODIUM,
GOLD COAST
Architect Innovarchi—design
directors Stephanie Smith,
Ken McBryde; project
architect Kent Elliott; project
team—Andreas Traxler, Alex
Phegan. Collaborative
consultants Arup Facades—Tristram Carfrae, Peter
Hartigan; Austress
Freyssinet—Stephen
Wrightson. Glazing consultant
G. James. Structural engineer
Whaley Consulting Group—Brian Whaley. Specialist
lighting Lighting Design—Tony Dowthwaite. Hydraulic
engineer Hamilton Design
Group—Greg Hamilton. Wind
engineer Windtech—Tony
Rofail. Builder Sunland
Constructions—John Tatler.
Client Sunland Group. Tower
design Sunland Design Group.
Tower documentation
architect The Buchan Group.
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