Renovo Lodges a 29-Storey South Brisbane Tower with a Striking Diagrid Facade by FK

A striking diagrid tower has been lodged for a narrow corner of South Brisbane. Developer Renovo Solutions has applied to Brisbane City Council for a 29 storey rooming accommodation tower at 37 Cordelia Street, designed by Fender Katsalidis (FK), with a copper-toned structural lattice wrapping planted terraces from the street to a rooftop garden.

The application, lodged through the site company Milton 1 Pty Ltd with planning by Mewing Planning Consultants, would deliver 350 rooms of student and co-living accommodation across levels 5 to 28. It sits in the Principal Centre zone within the Kurilpa Sustainable Growth Precinct, the fast changing pocket of South Brisbane between the Cultural Centre and West End.

The defining idea is structural. On a development site of just 921 square metres with about 20 metres of frontage, FK moved the building’s stability to its perimeter as a diagrid, a diamond lattice that doubles as the facade. The architects trace the concept back to the Brisbane landscape.

The design draws directly from the exposed and interconnected root systems of Brisbane’s native fig trees. Their branching forms demonstrate how distributed support, interconnected load paths and an efficient use of material can create both structural strength and a powerful visual identity. This natural logic informed the development of the diagrid and branching colonnade as defining elements of the proposal.

Fender Katsalidis, Design Report

Moving the structure outward frees the interior of columns, which matters on a floorplate this slender. FK principal Alex Ward said the architecture and engineering had to be resolved together from the outset.

By moving the stabilising system to the perimeter, we were able to free up the floorplate and give the building much greater flexibility. The engineering then becomes part of the building’s architectural identity, creating opportunities for depth, shade and integrated greenery across the facade.

Alex Ward, Principal, Fender Katsalidis

The building is proposed as rooming accommodation rather than apartments, a co-living and student model in which compact private rooms are supported by extensive shared facilities rather than individual balconies. Renovo casts the approach as a way to make difficult inner-city sites work harder for housing supply.

The location is exceptional, but it is a challenging piece of land to develop well. Unlocking those sites one by one can make a meaningful cumulative contribution to accommodation supply, without compromising design quality or resident amenity.

Simon Heathcote, Director, Renovo Solutions

In place of private balconies, the scheme leans on communal amenity: more than 1,100 square metres of shared space, including co-working on Level 2, a communal lounge on Level 3, a gym, a masterchef kitchen and dining, and double-height landscaped terraces set into the diagrid on alternating levels. A lawned rooftop garden, which the architects call a ‘park in the sky’, would sit at Level 28 with outdoor dining and barbecue areas over the CBD.

At ground level the tower opens up. A publicly accessible arcade would run through the site between Cordelia and Manning Streets, lined with food, drink and retail tenancies, with landscape by Dunn Moran Landscape Architects carrying planting from the street up through the facade to the roof for a green plot ratio of 58%.

As a rooming accommodation development close to the busway, ferries and the CBD, the tower is firmly transit-oriented: just 10 visitor car spaces sit in the basement, alongside 110 bicycle spaces. Waste is handled by a dual chute system, with separate general waste and recycling chutes on every residential level, so residents do not have to carry recycling to the basement.

The landscape concept plans set out the ground floor and arcade, the communal recreation levels and the rooftop garden.

Project Rundown

Renovo Solutions describes itself as an integrated property group, combining development, engineering and construction in one team, and 37 Cordelia is one of its most advanced projects to date. The company frames the tower as a demonstration of how narrow, underutilised inner-city sites can be unlocked when architecture and engineering are developed together from the start.

It has engaged Fender Katsalidis, the international practice behind MONA in Hobart and Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, for the architecture and urban design, with Dunn Moran Landscape Architects on landscape, Mewing Planning Consultants on town planning, PSA Consulting on traffic, Civil Works Engineers on engineering, Michael Bale and Associates on flood and Elephants Foot Group on waste. The project has progressed to construction pricing with Hutchinson Builders, and forms the first stage of Renovo’s plans, with the adjoining 42 to 44 Manning Street site earmarked for a later application.

Plans

Artist’s impressions by Fender Katsalidis and landscape plans by Dunn Moran Landscape Architects, lodged with development application A007101267 to Brisbane City Council, and supplied in part by Renovo Solutions; renders are indicative and subject to change. Figures are drawn from the lodged architectural and landscape reports and the Mewing Planning Consultants town planning assessment.