Allendale Square
Encyclopedia
Allendale Square is a 32-storey
skyscraper
in Perth
, Western Australia
. When opened in 1976, the 132 metres (433.1 ft) building surpassed the AMP Building
to become the tallest completed building in Perth, a title which it only held until 1977 when St Martins Tower
opened.
and Sherwood Court where Allendale Square now stands was owned as early as 1829 by the Leake family.
Later, it was home to Warwick House, the Bank of New South Wales, the Commercial Travellers Association and the Daily News Chambers. These buildings were demolished in 1974 for construction of Allendale Square.
The tower, which was designed by Architects Cameron, Chisholm and Nicol, was built by Multiplex
. The building's anodised aluminium
cladding was extensively weather tested to ensure it could resist atmospheric corrosion
.
Although this cladding covers a 70% of the exterior of the building, all cladding units were installed from inside the tower without the use of external scaffolding
.
The building was officially opened by Premier
Sir Charles Court
on 3 August 1976. Also attending the opening were descendants of the Leake family which had owned the site from the earliest days of the colony
.
for charity down its side. The first of these events was held in November 2002, and its success led to it being held annually thereafter, until the change in the building's ownership forced the end of this charitable event.
The tower has also been used as a base from which to launch shells in the Lotterywest Skyworks
annual fireworks
display.
The building's prominent tenants include ANZ Bank
(which also owns the signage rights over the building), Qantas
and Francis Burt Chambers.
when it took over GEM in 1996. In mid-2000 General Property Trust put its half-share in the tower up for sale for $44.25 million, but no offers it received came close and it was forced to take the building off the market.
Meanwhile, in 1995, the other half share in the tower was acquired from an MLC Life
fund by the Australian Prime Property Fund in a package that cost a total of $125 million.
Western Australian property mogul Ralph Sarich's investment company Cape Bouvard Investments bought Allendale Square in two steps for $93.03 million between 2001 and 2002. It bought half from the General Property Trust in September 2001 and the other half for $48 million from Australian Prime Property Fund in April 2002.
Later, General Electric
bought the tower in December 2006 for $154 million from Cape Bouvard. GE put the tower up for sale in 2008, however the tower was taken off the market after none of the offers received met the desired $200 million sale price.
Most recently, the building was refurbished from 2001 to 2002, which also involved remodelling of the three storey building adjacent to the tower. This involved an upgrade of some floors, the lobby and the adjoining ANZ Bank branch. The outdoor plaza was also to be revamped for the first time since the building was opened in 1976.
The complex was expanded with the completion in early 2006 of the Allendale II building on the site of the former CTA building at the rear of the Allendale Square site. This seven-storey building is connected to Allendale Square and its underground shopping centre, and boosted the total lettable space in the complex to 35000 square metres (376,736.9 sq ft).
concession from the Perth City Council
.
The walls of the tower are stepped in plan, creating V-shaped protrusions along each face. In order to maximise views towards the Swan River
whilst reducing heat loads, the building has windows only on the north and south-facing sides of these steps, and the remainder of the tower is clad with aluminium. The 400 tonnes (881,849 lb) of aluminium panels were created from locally-mined bauxite
, refined at Kwinana
by Alco in the largest aluminium task ever undertaken in Australia at that time. On its opening, the building was the largest fully aluminium-clad freestanding tower in Australia, and one of the largest in the world.
The 992 windows of the tower are solar-bronze glass, up to 12.7 mm (0.5 in) thick on upper levels. Ninety percent of the tower's levels had uninterrupted views to the river upon its opening, and all of the office levels are free of internal columns. When it was opened, the tower's lobby had red carpet at the entrance, high ceilings and marble columns.
In addition to a lift
between the 99-bay basement car park and the lobby, the tower has nine high-speed lifts, divided into two zones. When the tower opened, these lifts were among the most advanced in the world, improving travelling times and halving the plant room
space they required. The electronic security devices and air conditioning
systems were also advanced. The roof of the building's mechanical penthouse, which is adorned with the ANZ Bank logo, is designed to be able to function as a helipad
if necessary.
The building has 34 levels, made up of a basement car park, an underground retail arcade, the ground floor lobby, a conference suite, 29 office levels and the plant level at the top. The tower has 27700 square metres (298,160.3 sq ft) of lettable space and a "spacious" lobby.
The building has been described as a "fine example" of high-rise architecture,
"timeless", "one of Perth's most prominent office buildings",
a building of "considerable elegance" and a good building in its time which still remains relevant.
.
The building has also won several architectural awards, including:
Storey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
. When opened in 1976, the 132 metres (433.1 ft) building surpassed the AMP Building
140 St Georges Terrace
140 St Georges Terrace is a 30-storey skyscraper in Perth, Western Australia. Opened in 1975, the tower was known as the AMP Building or AMP Tower after its owner and former flagship tenant, AMP Limited...
to become the tallest completed building in Perth, a title which it only held until 1977 when St Martins Tower
St Martins Tower
St Martins Tower is a office building in Perth, Western Australia. It was the tallest building in the city from its completion in 1978 for almost 10 years, until it was overtaken in height by the BankWest Tower in 1988. The tower contains a revolving restaurant and cocktail lounge on the top floor...
opened.
Site history and construction
The corner of St Georges TerraceSt Georges Terrace, Perth
St Georges Terrace is the main street in the city of Perth, Western Australia. It runs parallel to the Swan River and forms the major arterial road through the central business district....
and Sherwood Court where Allendale Square now stands was owned as early as 1829 by the Leake family.
Later, it was home to Warwick House, the Bank of New South Wales, the Commercial Travellers Association and the Daily News Chambers. These buildings were demolished in 1974 for construction of Allendale Square.
The tower, which was designed by Architects Cameron, Chisholm and Nicol, was built by Multiplex
Multiplex (company)
Brookfield Multiplex is a global contracting and development company that designs, builds and maintains property and infrastructure assets.- History :Brookfield Multiplex was founded as Multiplex in 1962 in Perth, Western Australia by John Roberts...
. The building's anodised aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
cladding was extensively weather tested to ensure it could resist atmospheric corrosion
Corrosion
Corrosion is the disintegration of an engineered material into its constituent atoms due to chemical reactions with its surroundings. In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of metals in reaction with an oxidant such as oxygen...
.
Although this cladding covers a 70% of the exterior of the building, all cladding units were installed from inside the tower without the use of external scaffolding
Scaffolding
Scaffolding is a temporary structure used to support people and material in the construction or repair of buildings and other large structures. It is usually a modular system of metal pipes or tubes, although it can be from other materials...
.
The building was officially opened by Premier
Premier of Western Australia
The Premier of Western Australia is the head of the executive government in the Australian State of Western Australia. The Premier has similar functions in Western Australia to those performed by the Prime Minister of Australia at the national level, subject to the different Constitutions...
Sir Charles Court
Charles Court
Sir Charles Walter Michael Court, was a Western Australian politician, 21st Premier of Western Australia and member for the seat of Nedlands for the Liberal Party for nearly 30 years.-Early life:...
on 3 August 1976. Also attending the opening were descendants of the Leake family which had owned the site from the earliest days of the colony
Swan River Colony
The Swan River Colony was a British settlement established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia. In 1832, the colony was officially renamed Western Australia, when the colony's founding Lieutenant-Governor, Captain James Stirling,...
.
Post-completion
Allendale Square has been used for abseilingAbseiling
Abseiling , rappelling in American English, is the controlled descent down a rock face using a rope; climbers use this technique when a cliff or slope is too steep and/or dangerous to descend without protection.- Slang terms :...
for charity down its side. The first of these events was held in November 2002, and its success led to it being held annually thereafter, until the change in the building's ownership forced the end of this charitable event.
The tower has also been used as a base from which to launch shells in the Lotterywest Skyworks
Lotterywest Skyworks
The City of Perth Skyworks is a fireworks show that is held over the section of the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia known as Perth Water. It is held every Australia Day on the 26th of January....
annual fireworks
Fireworks
Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...
display.
The building's prominent tenants include ANZ Bank
ANZ Bank
The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited , commonly called ANZ, is the fourth largest bank in Australia, after the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac Banking Corporation and the National Australia Bank. Australian operations make up the largest part of ANZ's business, with commercial and retail...
(which also owns the signage rights over the building), Qantas
Qantas
Qantas Airways Limited is the flag carrier of Australia. The name was originally "QANTAS", an initialism for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services". Nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo", the airline is based in Sydney, with its main hub at Sydney Airport...
and Francis Burt Chambers.
Ownership
A half share in the building was bought in 1988 by Armstrong Jones Perth Property Fund for $41.63 million. This half share was later purchased for $39.35 million by GEM Commercial Property Trust in 1995, which was acquired by the General Property TrustGeneral Property Trust
General Property Trust Limited , trading as GPT Group, is an Australian company that is a property investor and manager in Australia, Europe and the United States...
when it took over GEM in 1996. In mid-2000 General Property Trust put its half-share in the tower up for sale for $44.25 million, but no offers it received came close and it was forced to take the building off the market.
Meanwhile, in 1995, the other half share in the tower was acquired from an MLC Life
MLC Limited
MLC is an Australian asset and wealth management company, which was acquired by the National Australia Bank . It provides investment, superannuation, insurance and private wealth services to corporate and institutional customers....
fund by the Australian Prime Property Fund in a package that cost a total of $125 million.
Western Australian property mogul Ralph Sarich's investment company Cape Bouvard Investments bought Allendale Square in two steps for $93.03 million between 2001 and 2002. It bought half from the General Property Trust in September 2001 and the other half for $48 million from Australian Prime Property Fund in April 2002.
Later, General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
bought the tower in December 2006 for $154 million from Cape Bouvard. GE put the tower up for sale in 2008, however the tower was taken off the market after none of the offers received met the desired $200 million sale price.
Refurbishments and complex expansion
The building has been refurbished three times since it opened in 1976. In 1989 the building underwent a minor refurbishment at a cost of $1.5 million. Then, starting in 1999, the building underwent an extensive internal refurbishment which cost $2.5 million. The project involved a refit of the lobby, replacement of lift cars and improvement to core services like lighting. Architect Anna Meszaros from firm Cameron Chisholm and Nicol was responsible for this refurbishment.Most recently, the building was refurbished from 2001 to 2002, which also involved remodelling of the three storey building adjacent to the tower. This involved an upgrade of some floors, the lobby and the adjoining ANZ Bank branch. The outdoor plaza was also to be revamped for the first time since the building was opened in 1976.
The complex was expanded with the completion in early 2006 of the Allendale II building on the site of the former CTA building at the rear of the Allendale Square site. This seven-storey building is connected to Allendale Square and its underground shopping centre, and boosted the total lettable space in the complex to 35000 square metres (376,736.9 sq ft).
Design
The tower is located on a 4053 square metres (43,626.1 sq ft) site, 15 metres (49.2 ft) above sea level, however the tower itself only occupies 25% of this land area. Designed by architects Cameron, Chisolm and Nicol, the building is rotated 45 degrees relative to St Georges Terrace, in order to secure a plot ratioFloor Area Ratio
The floor area ratio or floor space index is the ratio of the total floor area of buildings on a certain location to the size of the land of that location, or the limit imposed on such a ratio....
concession from the Perth City Council
City of Perth
The City of Perth is a local government area and body, within the Perth Metropolitan Area, which is the capital of Western Australia. The local government body is commonly known as Perth City Council. The city covers the Perth central business district and surrounding suburbs...
.
The walls of the tower are stepped in plan, creating V-shaped protrusions along each face. In order to maximise views towards the Swan River
Swan River (Western Australia)
The Swan River estuary flows through the city of Perth, in the south west of Western Australia. Its lower reaches are relatively wide and deep, with few constrictions, while the upper reaches are usually quite narrow and shallow....
whilst reducing heat loads, the building has windows only on the north and south-facing sides of these steps, and the remainder of the tower is clad with aluminium. The 400 tonnes (881,849 lb) of aluminium panels were created from locally-mined bauxite
Bauxite
Bauxite is an aluminium ore and is the main source of aluminium. This form of rock consists mostly of the minerals gibbsite Al3, boehmite γ-AlO, and diaspore α-AlO, in a mixture with the two iron oxides goethite and hematite, the clay mineral kaolinite, and small amounts of anatase TiO2...
, refined at Kwinana
Kwinana, Western Australia
The Town of Kwinana is a Local Government Area of Western Australia. It covers an area of approximately 118 square kilometres in metropolitan Perth, and lies about 38 km south of Perth's central business district, via the Kwinana Freeway...
by Alco in the largest aluminium task ever undertaken in Australia at that time. On its opening, the building was the largest fully aluminium-clad freestanding tower in Australia, and one of the largest in the world.
The 992 windows of the tower are solar-bronze glass, up to 12.7 mm (0.5 in) thick on upper levels. Ninety percent of the tower's levels had uninterrupted views to the river upon its opening, and all of the office levels are free of internal columns. When it was opened, the tower's lobby had red carpet at the entrance, high ceilings and marble columns.
In addition to a lift
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
between the 99-bay basement car park and the lobby, the tower has nine high-speed lifts, divided into two zones. When the tower opened, these lifts were among the most advanced in the world, improving travelling times and halving the plant room
Mechanical floor
A mechanical floor, mechanical penthouse, or mechanical level is a storey of a high-rise building that is dedicated to mechanical and electronics equipment. "Mechanical" is the most commonly used term, but words such as utility, technical, service, and plant are also used...
space they required. The electronic security devices and air conditioning
HVAC
HVAC refers to technology of indoor or automotive environmental comfort. HVAC system design is a major subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer...
systems were also advanced. The roof of the building's mechanical penthouse, which is adorned with the ANZ Bank logo, is designed to be able to function as a helipad
Helipad
Helipad is a common abbreviation for helicopter landing pad, a landing area for helicopters. While helicopters are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a clearly marked hard surface away from obstacles where a helicopter can safely...
if necessary.
The building has 34 levels, made up of a basement car park, an underground retail arcade, the ground floor lobby, a conference suite, 29 office levels and the plant level at the top. The tower has 27700 square metres (298,160.3 sq ft) of lettable space and a "spacious" lobby.
The building has been described as a "fine example" of high-rise architecture,
"timeless", "one of Perth's most prominent office buildings",
a building of "considerable elegance" and a good building in its time which still remains relevant.
Awards
Allendale Square was named as one of the Top 20 Australian 20th century icon buildings by the Royal Australian Institute of ArchitectsRoyal Australian Institute of Architects
The Australian Institute of Architects is a professional body for architects in Australia. Until August 2008, the Institute traded as the "Royal Australian Institute of Architects", which remains its official name....
.
The building has also won several architectural awards, including:
- 1977 — Alcoa of Australia Award for Architecture;
- 1978 — Royal Australian Institute of ArchitectsRoyal Australian Institute of ArchitectsThe Australian Institute of Architects is a professional body for architects in Australia. Until August 2008, the Institute traded as the "Royal Australian Institute of Architects", which remains its official name....
Design Award; - 1978 — ACI Energy Conservation Award; and
- 1981 — Royal Australian Institute of Architects (WA Chapter) Bronze Medal.
External links
- Official site
- Emporis page on the building
- Skyscraperpage article about the building
- State Library of Western Australia — photographs of Allendale Square under construction