Two strategies were adopted to transform an 80s office tower courtyard: wrapping the existing building with a new podium, and making a city-scaled lightbox. The classic western urbanism of the plaza was replaced with ‘an Asian complexity of laneways, courtyards, water gardens and colonnades’, defined by random, wrapping surfaces of black and olive-green granite and large expanses of glass.

 

The 12-storey lightbox conceals the large blank party wall that previously dominated the plaza. Reflecting the city by day, it is a riot of fluorescent colour by night. The retail podium houses furntiure showroom Mod-Liivng, Loof which is a popular rooftop chill out bar and a Japanese restaurant on the ground floor. Landscape design

and styling