The world-class office tower, spanning 35-levels, is designed for 7,000 employees and incorporates more than 60,000 square metres of premium-grade office space. It’s one of Australia’s smartest buildings, embracing leading technology and sustainability initiatives.

Global design studio, Woods Bagot, collaborated with Mirvac, R&G Real Estate and Suncorp to create the new ‘destination office’ for Brisbane, revitalizing the urban precinct at Heritage Lanes.

“We designed 80 Ann from a deep understanding of the city and the site’s heritage as the former Brisbane Fruit & Produce Exchange,” says David Lee, Associate Principal, Woods Bagot. “We had a strong desire to re-create the atmosphere of the marketplace and create a memorable destination for the people of Brisbane that feels quintessential to the city.” 

“The building’s floating veil canopies the entire ground plane and podium, creating a protected public place in the city. The profile of the veil resonates with the original Brisbane Fruit & Produce Exchange sheds — a legible visual reference to the site’s heritage,” says Lee.

Through this restoration of a significant part of the former Brisbane Fruit & Produce Exchange on Turbot Street, the ground plane has become a modern-day open marketplace, with retail and spaces designed to encourage workers, locals, and tourists to mingle from day through to the evenings.

The team have not only preserved the façade of the two-story brick masonry building on Turbot Street, but also two of the original trading bays from the interior of the markets. Prior to construction, these bays were painstakingly disassembled, catalogued, preserved, and put into storage.

The original timbers from the trading bays have been re-instated as part of the market hall in the retail precinct, spanning in the laneway that connects Ann Street to Turbot Street.

The podium’s floating veil takes the form and profile of the original roof of the Turbot Street market. The glass screen is ventilated and openable in places – floors in the podium are pulled away from the glass screen with the resultant interstitial void space and volumes allowing views from the footpath up into the podium floors as well as northerly light into the rear of the marketplace. The skirt of the glazed screen lifts at entry points to reveal the podium floors above the ground levels as well as make entries more legible and intuitive to use.

­­­“By elevating the lobby, the ground plane is given back to the city, along with abundance of subtropical landscape, laneways, public art and activated public realm,” says Domenic Alvaro, Global Design Director, Woods Bagot.

The design for 80 Ann Street was developed to align with Brisbane City Council’s ‘Buildings that Breathe’ initiative that offers a vision for a Brisbane-specific subtropical architectural vernacular: opening-up buildings to cooling breezes and providing lush landscaping by ASPECT Studios.

“The podium floors of 80 Ann are designed to create landscaped voids between floors, with views up the glazed roof sections and ultimately to the sky above,” explains Alvaro. “These floors articulate the building but also provide opportunities for the tenants to engage with the climate and outdoors.”

The breathable floor on level 23 of 80 Ann offers an entirely new type of office tower experience. Conceptually the entire floor has been designed as a mixed mode ‘garden terrace’ – facades are openable and breathable. Timber pods housing meeting rooms, collaboration spaces and other client engagement spaces ‘float’ on this floor as destinations for informal gatherings.

Heritage Lanes is the first development in Australia to target the highest rating of the Green Building Council’s newly released rating tool ‘Green Star Buildings’ alongside 5.5 Star NABERS Energy and 4.5 Star NABERS Water ratings and a Platinum Core and Shell WELL Certification.

Mirvac Group General Manager, Commercial & Mixed-Use Development, Simon Healy said Mirvac was proud to deliver a workplace precinct that creates a new benchmark for Brisbane’s premium office market. 

“Heritage Lanes is the expression of a fantastic partnership that, from the outset, set out to be a world-class workplace and one of the most intelligent buildings in Australia, with ongoing innovation, a truly flexible design to meet Suncorp’s needs and a high level of sustainability.”

“80 Ann Street combines Queensland authenticity with global thinking to create a world-class workplace for Suncorp and other tenants, and an activated city precinct for the community. “

“Heritage Lanes is demonstrative of the power of contemporary subtropical architecture,” adds Kirsti Simpson, Executive Studio Chair, Woods Bagot.

“With an abundance of naturally ventilated spaces and a human centric focus, this place defines the future of work experience. Both the building footprint and amenity provision, uniquely support the team-based way of working for the people of Suncorp and the surrounding community.”

Media enquiries
Tili Bensley-Nettheim
Content and Communications (Australia & New Zealand)