Almost two years to the day since construction began, the first stage of Westfield Group‘s $1.2 billion Westfield Sydney development opened last week ( 28th Oct, 2010) –  6 months ahead of schedule.

The Westfield Sydney ( Centrepoint) redevelopment site is bound by Pitt Street Mall and Market and Castlereagh Streets in the heart of Sydney’s Central Business District. Centrepoint was the first shopping centre of its kind in Sydney’s central business district. It opened in 1972 with 52 shops, many of which are still trading today.

The centre was added to the Westfield Group portfolio in December 2001. The completed precinct encompasses six elements totaling 171,000sqm of gross lettable area that together will create a world-class retail, tourism and office location in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, expected to be valued at approximately $3 billion.

john wardle architects westfield sydney concept

sydney city council planning unit city model

The winning design for the external development and commercial tower from Melbourne based John Wardle Architects, was chosen from a field of 6 international and local architects as the outstanding proposal achieving design excellence.

Westfield also engaged internationally renowned Tokyo-based interior design company Wonderwall for the Westfield Sydney Retail development. Previous Wonderwall projects include the Collette store in Paris and Uniqlo stores worldwide.

 

 

85 Castlereagh Street Tower and Retail plaza design

The 3 key elements of the redevelopment are

3) 85 Castlereagh Street – tower

A new commercial 25-storey tower will be built above the new retail podium. Access to the tower will be via new shuttle lifts from the Sky Lobby at the top of the retail precinct which will act as a transition area for access to Castlereagh Street and the retail area.

85 Castlereagh St with an area of 33,000 sqm will house the Australian headquarters of J.P. Morgan and Westfield Group HQ’s when opened in early 2012.

The combined office component of the development site will comprise around 76,500 sqm across the three buildings.

centrepoint tower and proposed tower

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 Westfield Group opened the first stage of the $1.2 billion Westfield Sydney redevelopment project with 130 fashion and food specialty stores open for trade. A further 120 stores will open between November 2010 and late-2011.

Located in Australia’s best retail area on Pitt Street Mall and bordered by Castlereagh and Market streets, the centre sits between the country’s highest-performing department stores – David Jones and Myer.  The precinct integrates three former retail centres; Centrepoint, Imperial Arcade and Skygarden and also incorporates Sydney Tower and the former Sydney Central Plaza totalling 92,000 square metres (sqm) of retail space across all sites.

westfield sydney retail plan

Managing director Steven Lowy cut the ribbon on Thursday to open the first stage of the property group’s $1.2 billion redevelopment in Sydney’s central business district.

‘Westfield Sydney is our latest flagship centre and we think we have raised the bar on anything that we have previously done,’ Mr Lowy said.

The First Stage was opened six months early and Steven Lowy very proudly opened it with Aussie fashion designers supporting him: Sarah Jane Clarke & Heidi Middleton (Sass & Bide), Leona Edmiston, Dan Single (Ksubi), Simone and Nicole Zimmermann (Zimmermann), Gail Elliott (Little Joe Woman), Alexandra and Genevieve Smart (Ginger and Smart), Nic Cerrone, Marie Ritchie (Hussy) and Leading Aussie Chefs, Justin North (Becasse), Michael Moore (The Summit) AND John Sussman (Cloudy Bay Fish Company)

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About Wonderwall Tokyo

Masamichi Katayama

Founded in 2000, Masamichi Katayama, founder of interior design firm Wonderwall, elicits an uninhibited sense of energy towards design even in Japan, where architecture and interior design is known for being one of the most exhilarating in the world.

Katayama’s interest in design has always been broad, respecting conventional and traditional aspects of architecture, while believing in breaking boundaries. A “total concept” designer, Katayama’s intensions are focused in creating an environment that would touch the subconscious of the consumer and occupant.

While the firm is best known for retail design, Wonderwall has extensively built a wide range of pursuits in design including architectural direction, and product design. His work has expanded to Japan, Hong Kong, China, Russia, France, England and the United states.

In 2007, Katayama was honoured as the ‘Interior Design Firm of the Year’ through The Great Indoors Award, a biennial international interior design award. (The Netherlands/Mr. Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of International Jury).

In 2008, his second monograph “Wonderwall Masamichi Katayama Projects No.2” (Frame Publishers) was launched in September at specialty boutique colette in Paris, which was redesigned by Wonderwall, followed by the rest of Europe, the United States, and then Japan.

If retail stores are the cathedrals of 21st century culture, the founder of Tokyo-based Wonderwall design studio is responsible for the hallowedest of grounds. Katayama has built cutting-edge interiors for A Bathing Ape, Uniqlo, Sony, and Marc Jacobs — think clothes on conveyer belts and other sci-fi flourishes — and his Pop-inflected aesthetic pulses with a forward-looking energy.

“The future should be about not having restrictions on potentialities. At least that is what I try to practice, and I believe that the responsibility of every creator should be about broadening the possibilities in design.”

1966  Born in Okayama, Japan.

1990  Became independent.

1992  Established H. Design Associates.

2000  Established Wonderwall Inc.

About John Wardle Architects

John Wardle

Founded in 1986 by John Wardle, our design-intensive practice fosters a collaborative studio environment to excite and develop ideas. Our broad range of type and scale of project work, across three states, makes us an unusual practice.

John Wardle has an international reputation as a design architect and has developed a design process that builds upon ideas that evolve from a site’s topography, landscape, history and context and a client’s particular aspirations and values. The result is an architecture closely tailored to its place and highly experiential in nature.

The design of every project involves John at the conceptual phase, establishing ideas, discussing these with our clients and reflecting upon their response and conversation. His passion for detail and the inventive use of materials draws John into the ongoing development of initial ideas into a fully formed architectural work.

John has instigated collaborations with several important artists to create public art components for our projects with the strong support and involvement of our clients. The process of working with an artist has in every instance encouraged us to reconsider our building’s relationship to the public realm and has enriched our architecture in many ways.

John has been a visiting lecturer at Columbia University, New York, and lectures periodically at various universities across Australia. In 2005 he spoke at the EcoEdge Conference in Melbourne and in Wellington, New Zealand at the NZIA. He presented at the Dean’s Lecture Series 2006 at The University of Melbourne and at the RAIA National Architecture Conference in the same year. In 2007 he spoke at the World Architecture Congress in Shanghai. He has on several occasions served on RAIA Awards Juries at state and national level.

About Westfield Group

frank lowy

The Westfield Group is the world’s largest listed retail property group by equity market capitalisation. The Group has interests in and operates a global portfolio of 119 high-quality regional shopping centres in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, valued at more than $61 billion. Westfield Group works with over 23,700 retailers across more than 10 million square metres of retail space.

The Westfield Group has interests in total assets of around A$60 billion, representing 119 shopping centres in four countries with over 10 million square metres of retail space, making the Westfield Group the largest Australian property group listed on the ASX and the world’s largest retail property group by equity market capitalisation.

Westfield is a vertically integrated shopping centre group. It manages all aspects of shopping centre development, from design and construction through to leasing, management and marketing.

The Westfield Group creates value through intensive management at an operational level and a strategic development program which continually improves the quality of the portfolio to generate income and capital growth for investors.

Westfield Sydney is the first shopping centre that Westfield has built in an Australian central business district and when combined with its adjoining (via an air bridge) Sydney Central Plaza, will generate more than $600 million a year in sales.

Westfield Sydney joins other global flagship destinations in the Group’s portfolio, including Bondi Junction and Doncaster in Australia, Century City, San Francisco, Topanga, Valley Fair and Garden State Plaza in the United States and London and Stratford City – to open in 2011 – in the United Kingdom