Connor

by Smart Design Studio

Connor at Central Park by Smart Design Studio is more than just a building.More than just a building, it is the new gateway to one of Sydney’s most popular urban precincts – Central Park in Chippendale.

Home to 178 apartments and retail on the ground floor, this 13-storey building reads as a series of boxes or cubes suspended in the air – a delicate balance of form, composition and proportion. Connor at Central park received critical recognition by receiving the 2017 UDIA NSW Award for Excellence in High-Density Development.

The façade is clad in a brushed copper composite-aluminium whose warmth recalls the red brick found in the local area, including the heritage Brewery Yard building nearby, restored from the original Carlton Brewery site. Deep fixed louvres, arranged in horizontal stacks, run perpendicular to the facade of the building. Each stack is rotated in a slightly different direction to reflect ambient light at different angles, creating sheen and shadow.

Entering from Chippendale Green, visitors and residents are drawn though a compressed portal into a dramatic three-storey atrium lobby. Extending across all three stories, a huge light box illuminates the centre of the building, changing colour through the day choreographed from an infinite spectrum of colours.

The kitchen and joinery design draws inspiration from three great cities of the world, Helsinki, Antwerp and Granada. Interlocking forms are created by contrasting finishes, from raw matte timbers to glossy polyurethane or contrasting gloss levels to create subtle textural variations. The interiors deviate from the standard timber and white solutions of other developments to provide colour and context in a concept defined by the idea of ‘urban juxtaposition’.

Images Courtesy of Smart Design Studio.

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