Brisbane’s first 5 Star Green Star 9 storey commercial building, Wesley House designed by Fulton Trotter Architects, was on show recently as part of Brisbane Open House 2012.

The building is sited on prominent Ann Street overlooking King George Square in Brisbane's CBD.

Fulton Trotter recounts that 96 people from the greater Brisbane community took the opportunity to tour the innovative environmental solutions in architecture and the workplace.

This new commercial building replaced the 1940s Wesley House and neighbours Brisbane’s 1889 heritage listed Albert Street Uniting Church.

The building has been designed to defer to the presence of the Church by providing a considered backdrop with transparency and uncluttered lines to create depth of space for the Church. Setback from the street the new development increases views to and from the Church and creates open outdoor café space for street activation.

A new 5m high colonnade entry allows appreciation of the Church in the round; a view which has been unavailable to the city for 70 years.

Materials selection was an important consideration creating connection with the Church without deliberate reference, to be enduring and to perform environmentally.

Photographer: John Gollings. Images courtesy Fulton Trotter

Clear glass (as opposed to tinted) helps to maintain transparency and visual and social connection and the roof separates from the building façade to create a roof-top function room and terrace area. These attributes of connection, backdrop, and transparency, depth of façade, public space and high environmental performance have been delicately balanced with commercial viability considerations such as floor plate sizes and core area ratios.

John Ward, Associate of Fulton Trotter Architects led the groups up to the open plan rooftop terrace on level 9.
Level 8 was the first tenancy tour – Low Carbon Australia’s Andrew Powell (CFO) described how Wesley House was an important building for their office.

Designed by Geyer, Low Carbon Australia’s office fit-out includes innovative wall mounted LED monitors displaying their office energy consumption in graphs.

“Designing the workstations around the edge of the space was really important to us, we wanted all of our staff to experience the amazing views this building offers” Powell said. “The entire office has zoned sensor LED lighting meaning that only particular parts of the office will have lights on when people are using the space, no bother if you forget to switch the lights off at the end of the day.”

The next floor down, TRACT greeted the group for a tour of their creative and open plan workspace.

Client: Wesley Mission Brisbane
Budget: 20M
Fulton Trotter Architects: Mark Trotter, John Ward, Neil Roberts, Belinda Gleeson, Sam Weiler, Adrian Dunnett
Architectus: Lindsay Clare, Kerry Clare, Thilo Nuessgen
Builder: Matrix

Architecture & Design Team

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