Complicated, Challenging: Building the World’s Tallest ‘Plyscraper’

To the untrained eye, it probably still doesn’t look much like a development that is going to move the dial globally. Let alone one that is now a little more than halfway through its scheduled four-year construction timeline. But what is destined to become Atlassian Central—the tallest commercial “plyscraper” ever built—is on the rise in Sydney’s Tech Central innovation and technology precinct. And the world is watching. “We got this request from a publisher of Japanese school textbooks,” Dexus ’ Atlassian Central project director Peter Morley says. “They wanted to use an image of the building in their books for teaching Japanese students about sustainability, environmental initiatives and things like that. “And I just love the fact that there’s going to be kids in a Japanese classroom somewhere looking at an image of this tower in Australia and associating it with sustainable building. It's fantastic.” It is also somewhat impressive given the Land of the Rising Sun is a country where architectural design and construction techniques are steeped in a centuries-old tradition of timber craftsmanship. To mark its 350th anniversary, Japanese developer and global wood company Sumitomo Forestry, which this week signed a deal to acquire 51 per cent stake in Australian home builder Metricon , plans to construct a 350m, 70-floor hybrid timber tower in central Tokyo in 2041. ▲ Atlassian Central is due to complete in late 2026. Of course, that means the 39-storey Atlassian Central’s days as the world’s tallest hybrid timber commercial tower will be numbered. But Morley says that is also the whole point of the $1.4-billion exercise—to pave the way for an innovative new era of development. “That’s the reach of this thing,” he says. “And it shows how we can affect global change from Australia. “I mean, that’s really what attracted me personally, and has excited the Dexus business about it … this great opportunity to actually really make a positive change—not just in Sydney or Australia, but globally. “To respond to this need to reduce carbon intensive activities in the world by bringing all these design, functional and sustainability aspects together into a building that will reset how office buildings are developed in the future.” Atlassian Central is on track for completion in late 2026. It will be the new Australian headquarters for its namesake software giant, which has partnered with ASX-listed Dexus—one of the country’s largest office tower owners—as developer and co-owner of the cutting-edge building. Works began on its 3768sq m site next to Central Railway Station in Sydney’s Haymarket in August, 2022 with the careful dismantling of the heritage-listed Inwards Parcels Shed that will eventually be re-erected on the same spot as a centrepiece of the project's activated ground level. ▲ Dexus’ Atlassian Central project director Peter Morley: great opportunity to actually really make a positive change. Overall, Atlassian Central will comprise a gross floor area of 75,000sq m, of which 59,100sq m will be office space sitting above a new five-level, 500-bed state-of-the-art YHA hostel catering for digital nomads and travellers. The tower’s design by Sydney-based BVN and New York-based SHoP Architects has been deemed a gamechanger for low-carbon construction, targeting a 50 per cent reduction in embodied carbon during construction, 6 Star Green Star Rating as well as a 5.5 Star NABERS energy rating using 100 per cent renewable energy from day one of operation. So far, the focus has been on digging the basement levels, then laying the foundations and the supporting structure for the tower—with 10,500 cubic metres of green concrete and 1000 tonnes of green steel deployed to date. “The use of timber makes a lot of sense … but its challenge is that it doesn’t have the structural capacity of the traditional more carbon intensive materials of steel and concrete,” Morley says. “And that’s why the development landed on what we call a hybrid timber structure. “You get all the benefits of the timber … but without having to deal with its limitations because the structural load is still being taken up by steel and concrete.” Vertically, the building design is divided into five-storey steel structural zones each infilled with thousands of cubic metres of cross-laminated timber flooring and glulam beams. Morley says the first phase of construction has been “structurally challenging and technically complicated”. To enable the tower to “float” above and not dominate the 1906-built Inwards Parcels Shed, the building needs to be elevated, and its load supported by the core and two large columns. ▲ Atlassian Central is due to complete late 2026. “About three times the typical amount of steel reinforcement is in the bottom of the core from level one down just because so much load is being transferred at that point from the building above. It’s enormous,” Morley says. “So the structure is very technically complicated up to about level six, which is where we’ve got the core to now, and from there, it becomes a fairly traditional floor-to-floor approach.” Off-site prototyping was undertaken by the project’s construction team—a collaboration between Australia’s privately-owned Built and Japan’s largest construction firm Obayashi—to “get it right and make sure it was all going to come together on-site”. Meanwhile, the huge quantity of mass timber and green steel needed for the project necessitated it being sourced offshore from Austria and South Korea respectively. “You’d love to be able to source all these things from Australia but the reality is our manufacturing doesn’t have the capacity of the scale that we needed to be able to supply the building for those key elements,” Morley says. To mitigate any risks of potential supply chain issues that have plagued the industry on and off in recent years, much of the building material has been brought into the country early and stored in warehouses. “When we first contracted this back in 2022 global shipping was disrupted and it was a very significant consideration,” Morley says. “Pricing was all over the place … thankfully, it has settled down. “But when you’ve got a significant amount of your materials coming from overseas, it’s always a risk—you’re supply chain is always exposed.” Constructing an office tower next to a busy CBD train station also is “not the easiest working environment by any means”, Morley says. “It adds an extra complexity to the whole process…basically, the number one priority is don’t disrupt the trains but I guess it's the price you pay to create Australia's best transport-connected office building.” ▲ The Atlassian Central tower currently and a render of the completed project. Entering its next phase of construction, the diagrid steel exoskeleton that wraps around Atlassian Central supporting the load of its glass facade and the edges of its large column-free floorplates will begin to take shape. Another key design feature, its four-storey timber “habitats” sandwiched between its steel structure also will start fanning out from the building’s concrete-and-steel core as it gets higher. One of the most innovative aspects of the tower, according to Morley, is its “reimagining of the traditional air conditioning of office buildings”. About 80 per cent of the building will be air-conditioned. “But we’re also introducing ceiling fans into all of the office spaces…[and] that air movement will create a perception of comfort that allows us to broaden the temperature range that the building can operate in. “It’s a more sustainable approach and my view is that when we can demonstrate that this works, and that people can break out of the traditional way that we’ve air conditioned buildings for the last 100 years, it’ll be a step change. “One of the great principles of this building is about providing its occupants with choice as to the environment that they work in.” Crowning the tower from level 32 to 37 will be a combination of enclosed and open-air spaces to provide health and wellness amenities, cafe and dining facilities, and meeting and lounge spaces, along with planted terraces. Significantly, with a global software giant as its anchor tenant, the technology being integrated into the building is being procured at a later stage in the construction process to ensure it is the most up-to-date and not redundant within a few years of the building’s completion. ▲ Morley says the tower has “taken a bit longer than people anticipated”. “We’re cognisant of that across our development portfolio but very cognisant of it on this building in particular,” Morley says. He says although there has been no major hitches on the project so far, it has “taken a bit longer than people anticipated”. “We’re only talking a matter of a couple of weeks as opposed to months and the [construction] program has been maintained. “But when you do innovative things you’ve got to expect things can take a little bit more time. And, in reality, I don’t know that there’s been a building as structurally complex as this one built.” From this point, he says, the benefits of the project's hybrid timber approach will come to the fore. “Now that we’ve broken the back of that really technical structural phase...[it] will allow us to bring the building up quicker and get the facade on faster than a more traditional build. “That’s because we’re jumping up five levels every time and while we’re going up we’re coming back and infilling with the timber within each of those five-storey zones.” Atlassian Central is designed as a workplace that will be populated daily by thousands of tech workers, many of whom have the option to work from home. And although the company continues to empower its employees to choose their work location while others issue return-to-office mandates, Morley says there are no concerns the new tower will become a white elephant. “Atlassian's office occupancy in Australia is really strong,” he says. “The thing is, we've got to be looking to develop to meet the evolving needs of people, not just doing the same thing and expecting it to be something that people will just accept. “This building is about creating a space that responds to the needs of their staff, that provides an environment which is comfortable for them. And the expectation is that it is going to be really well occupied.” But what it all means for the future of the world's office buildings—many of them struggling with increasing post-pandemic vacancy rates—is the big question. “Everybody’s looking to understand what this building is,” Morely says. “Will everything be 100 per cent perfect on day one? Will we need to perhaps tweak things? I fully expect we will but that’s the price of innovation. “And if you’re not prepared to innovate and to learn from those things and to accept that some things need to change, then that’s where we do get stuck just doing the same thing over and over again. “That’s why it’s so important we do this building.” You are currently experiencing The Urban Developer Plus (TUD+), our premium membership for property professionals. Click here to learn more.

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