A heritage edge rebuilt as a vertical neighbourhood — five storeys of hand-laid Roman brick, arched colonnades and planted bowls, beneath a softly-curved tower of curtain glass.
The brief was simple — replace a tired single-storey shopfront with a thirty-two storey residential building — and quietly impossible: keep the heritage rhythm of the street, hold the line of the neighbour's parapet, and put a garden on every floor.
Our response was to split the building in two. A five-storey podium of Roman brick continues the street wall, arched and colonnaded to give the tower a quiet foot. Above, a softly-curved glass volume rises, each balcony a half-round bowl deep enough to hold a small tree.
The George is finished, planted, and inhabited. This page is a record of how it was made.
The podium began as a single section. A colonnade of half-round arches, each opening a planted bowl; the parapet of the neighbouring heritage building setting the cornice line of our own.
The sketch is dated February 2025. What stands at the corner of George and Linden today is, in almost every measure, that sheet of paper rebuilt at one-to-one.
We chose three materials and let them do the work. A long Roman brick, fired at Bowral and laid in stretcher courses, makes the podium and the half-round planters. White board-formed concrete wraps each balcony above. The glass between is fritted, not tinted — the building wants to read warm.
The colonnade is structural; the planters are integral, drawing irrigation through a hidden plenum in the slab edge. The arches are not ornament. They carry the building.
"The street is part of the building — and the building, where it can, gives back to the street."
Below the residences, four arched tenancies open onto a widened footpath of bluestone and grass. We worked with the city to take a metre back from the kerb on both sides — a small gesture that changed the section completely. The colonnade is now a sheltered, semi-public room.
Tenants were curated, not auctioned: a roastery, a wine bar, a florist and a bookshop. The architect stays involved through opening; signage, awnings and outdoor furniture all sit within a kit of parts.
The George occupies a 1,140 m² corner site on the western edge of George Street, where the heritage shopfronts of Linden meet a creek-side park. The brief asked for height; the site asked us to keep a foot on the ground. The podium does both.
A studio of fourteen, working between Sydney and Melbourne since 2009. We build slowly, in brick where we can, and we draw everything by hand first.
Level 3, 118 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000
42 Cecil Street
Fitzroy VIC 3065
press@jtai.com
studio@jtai.com