An ambitious $138 million, 51-storey building proposed for South Perth near Perth Zoo known as the “timber tower” faces knockback this week for not having “achieved design excellence”.
C6 promises to be the world’s tallest hybrid-timber building and Western Australia’s first to be “carbon negative”, but the Joint Development Assessment Panel will consider a recommendation for refusal at its Thursday meeting, calling it an “over-development” that has not adequately addressed authorities’ concerns.
Artist’s impression of the “timber tower”. Credit: Grange Development / Elenberg Fraser Architects
The redevelopment area between the zoo and freeway currently contains an uneasy mix of single-story heritage cottages, double-storey offices and smaller, older apartment blocks, juxtaposed with tall towers both new and under construction that are the result of recent years’ up-zonings.
The proposal is for “an icon of sustainable, climate-positive architecture” with 237 homes: 56 one-bed, 112 two-bed, 64 three-bed and five four-bedroom. The building would be three metres taller than the country’s other comparable timber-hybrid building, Atlassian’s Sydney headquarters, which is under construction.
It proposes a car-share scheme, providing no car bays for single and two-bedroom dwellings, which would instead share a fleet of 80 electric vehicles at the 4-8 Charles Street address.
The use of a “green” concrete mix and using extensive timber in the structure, the plan says, saves emissions in construction and instead sequesters carbon within the structure.
It includes a ground-floor cafe or restaurant, EV-capable parking lot, bike workshop station and e-bike chargers, an upper ground level playground, horticultural workshop and urban farm, a podium roof-level recreation and garden area, and a rooftop communal garden with kitchen, dining and lounge areas.
It also proposes a private contractor deal with the residents’ waste in order to provide food organics, garden organics recycling, which the City of South Perth has declined to adopt.
The agenda for Thursday’s meeting says it has provided only 2.4 per cent deep soil area for tree planting, instead of the required 10 per cent.
The development proposes “on-structure planting” to compensate, but “no demonstration of the viability of the proposed on-structure planting has been demonstrated,” the city noted in its assessment.
It also noted that the banksias and peppermint trees proposed under the podium would have restricted access to sunlight and there was no plan for how they would survive.
Artist’s impression of the planned rooftop area. Credit: Grange Development / Elenberg Fraser Architects
“The development is highly reliant on the success of on-structure planting; however, the long-term viability of planting on-structure has not been provided,” it says.
It also says the design will leave residents overly dependent on air-conditioning, having insufficient glazing and shading, and has not addressed wind impacts and “sway”.
Further, it notes that the building will be 6-Green Star, but the minimum future requirement will be for 7-Star under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme, and so the development should be aiming for this.
The plan has already been through a number of reworkings with the State Design Review Panel.
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