Wilkinson Eyre Architects recently won a competition to design the new Crown Hotel Sydney for Crown Resorts LTD. Their unique tower proposition rises as three tall, twisting forms linked around a central space. These forms rise from a pedestal and a shorter fourth volume, all clad in an iconic white skin which will provide progressive thermal qualities and reduce the building’s contribution to any heat island effect. Paul Baker, a director at Wilkinson Eyre Architects describes the project, stating that,
Courtesy of Wilkinson Eyre Architects
The architecture takes its inspiration from nature, composed of organic forms that provide an abstract, sculptural shape; it does not try to mimic any particular plant or flower but is derived from the specificity of the site and the client brief. its curved geometry emanates from three petal forms which twist and rise together. the first petal peels off, spreading outward to form the main hotel room accommodation, with the remaining two twisting together toward the sky.
Courtesy of Wilkinson Eyre Architects
Immediately setting the new proposal apart from the surrounding landscape is the tripartite tower’s entasis. Beginning as a slender base, the forms swell outwards near their halfway points before once again tightening inwards at their pinnacle. ‘Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and it is a great privilege to design such a significant building on the waterfront,’ says Wilkinson Eyre Architects’ founding director, Chris Wilkinson. ’My ambition is to create a sculptural form that will rise up on the skyline like an inhabited artwork, with differing levels of transparency, striking a clear new image against the sky.
