Australian architecture firm Woods Bagot has completed a new office building in North Sydney with spectacular views of the city’s harbor and downtown business district. Blue & William, named after its cross streets, is sited between a commercial area and a quiet suburb. To negotiate these disparate architectural languages, the architects framed the building’s large format windows with red-glazed terra-cotta baguettes, an addition that references the historic tile roofs of nearby residential structures.
Blue & William’s site was governed by local height and setback ordinances. Setbacks were required across the building’s southern facade in order to avoid overshadowing the grounds of an adjacent church. Conveniently, this created space for a series of outdoor terraces on the roof of the building, looking out over downtown Sydney.
