Author: Mariah Hart

Citymark Building, Haymarket

This exciting project was approved by the City of Sydney in June.

The owners of the 1980s Citymark building, located in the heart of Sydney’s Chinatown, wished to revitalise the precinct, add a new, high-standard architectural element to it and, especially, to represent the precinct’s historical Asian heritage through the forms and colours of traditional Chinese lanterns. This onetime market area is characterised by low-to medium scale historic commercial buildings, several heritage items including the adjoining former Bank of NSW building, and contemporary residential high-rises on its fringe.

GBA Heritage provided heritage documentation and worked with the owners and Wardles Architects to develop a simultaneously bold and sympathetic approach. The design features an external frame alluding in form and colour to Chinese lanterns, in its detailing to traditional Chinese ceramic roof tiles, and will add an exciting, colourful element to the cityscape.

The project was approved by the City of Sydney in June 2025.

JONATHAN BRYANT 1969 – 2024

We note with sadness Jonathan’s untimely passing on 27 November this year. As Associate Director at GBA between 2006 and 2017, Jonathan not only managed important projects, including conservation and restoration work at the Queen Victoria Building, the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, the State Theatre (including award-winning Heritage Interpretation) and many others, but also contributed broad knowledge, great enthusiasm and a keen wit to GBA’s culture, not to mention excellent restaurant recommendations. He will be missed by GBA and by the profession.

Federation House

Michael Bell Architects

Heritage listed Federation the residence in Centennial Park, which was restored with original details reinstated. Internally, the rear kitchen dining area was reconfigured to a contemporary layout, spilling out to the new pergola. The later granny flat and garage were demolished to the rear of the property, allowing for a new sympathetic garage with guest accommodation and a swimming pool.

GBA Heritage provided research and design advice and Statements of heritage impact for the project over the two stages of development.

Image Credit: Marilu Garozzo
Image Credit: Marilu Garozzo
Image Credit: Marilu Garozzo
Image Credit: Marilu Garozzo

Carabella Street, Kirribilli

The Glenferrie Lodge, established in 1907 in Kirribilli, has primarily functioned as an accommodation facility and has undergone multiple upgrades while maintaining its Federation Arts and Crafts architectural style and presentation within the streetscape. Winim Developments engaged Rothelowman Architects and GBA Heritage to enhance the building by adding three luxury apartments and upgrading its 42 rooms into boutique-style accommodations. Following thorough analysis and consideration of several development options, the project received approval from the NSW Land and Environment Court in early 2024.

Cheltenham

Hornsby Council issued consent for this project on 26 June 2024 and construction is expected to commence in the near future. A significant extension was required to allow this small Inter-War Old English style brick cottage in a Heritage Conservation Area to accommodate the anticipated number of residents and visitors. GBA Heritage’s research and analysis allowed later additions to be identified and removed, while our design advice helped to ensure compatibility with the original house and the Conservation Area.

Longford Academy

Two of our team members have attended Longford Academy – excellence in building conservation training this year, one at the Summer School and one at the Winter School. Both have returned with a deeper knowledge of material conservation and traditional material use while also reigniting a passion for traditional material detailing and preservation.

The First Nightingale Sydney

SJB and Dangar Barin Smith

GBA assisted in transforming this site from a redundant church building in a main street retail heritage conservation area into Sydney’s first Nightingale project.

Nightingale partnered with Fresh Hope Communities, an arm of the Church of Christ, who offered the land value, allowing for the shared vision to tackle affordable housing in Sydney’s Inner West. The project delivers an innovative build-to-rent scheme.

Anglewood, Burradoo

GBA Heritage was engaged to assist the architect, Coble Stephens Architects, and provide comment on proposed alterations and additions to this State Heritage Register (SHR) item, one of the largest country estates in the Southern Highlands, before its 2002 subdivision, and located just south of Bowral. It is a rare example of the British Queen Anne Arts and Crafts style and was directly copied from a pattern book of architecture. It is a finely crafted ‘Gentlemen’s’ residence from the early 1890s, with an impressive setting on the rise in the rolling landscape and surviving elements of the late Victorian garden.

Our advice for the proposed interior alterations was partly drawn from the 1995 Conservation Plan and its grading of significance. As is usual in heritage practice, the main alterations were proposed for the later area of the house where there was Little significance. Very little alteration was proposed to the original three-story section of the house of High significance, unless it was able to be demonstrated that it reinstaed of an original layout.

The proposed works for a pool with pool house and a garage were carefully located in an area at the rear of the residence that was of Little significance in landscape terms, including advice from Taylor Brammer Landscape Architects.

In addition to heritage advice, GBA Heritage prepared the Statement of Heritage Impact for the proposed works that required approval from both the Local Council and Heritage NSW, through an Integrated Development Application (IDA), which was achieved.

QT, Sydney

QT, Sydney, Former Gowling & State Theatre Building

GHD Design (formerly GHD Woodhead and Woodhead)

Opened in 2012, QT Sydney, developed by Amalgamated Holdings Ltd, was the first new five-star hotel to be completed in Sydney’s CBD in over a decade. The landmark project adapted the upper levels of Sydney’s much-loved, historic State Theatre Building and the Gowings Building, located on the corner of Market and George Streets, into a unique contemporary design hotel.

Established cultural values and adaptive reuse principles blend to create a Boutique Hotel focused on design. The design approach is a synthesis of contemporary design ideas, adaptive reuse, conservation of the existing historic building fabric and spaces, and reinterpretation of historic elements to embody a more contemporary idiom. The project also involved the strategic reconstruction of various key historic built elements.

Image Credit: Simon Wood Photography
Image Credit: Simon Wood Photography
Image Credit: Simon Wood Photography
Image Credit: Simon Wood Photography
Image Credit: Simon Wood Photography

The conservation philosophy centres on the adaptive reuse of the buildings, which enables and encourages public interaction with the original building elements. The conversion conserves and recaptures the important features of the buildings, enhances the significance of the place, revivifies the retail precinct and sympathetically integrates the ground level at George and Market streets with the city streetscape.

Hurlstone Park House

Carla Middleton Architects

Renovation, alteration, and additions to a contributory residence located within a Heritage Conservation Area. The Federation Cottage had layers of previous stripped-back and contemporary additions made. The additions stepped up the sloping block while maintaining a low profile, the contemporary additions both contrasting and complementing differing aspects of the existing residence.

GBA provided advice as the concept design was developed, completed the Statement of Heritage Impact for the Development application and discussed the project with Council’s heritage advisor as the project moved towards approval.