Project Overview

One Sydney Harbour represents the final piece of Barangaroo South by Lendlease. Over a decade in the making, One Sydney Harbour combines the creative genius of Pritzker prize-winning architect Renzo Piano Building Workshop (Italy), State of Craft (UK), and Darling Associates (UK) in collaboration with Lendlease.  
Renzo Piano was inspired by the 1966 photograph by David Moore (Sydney Harbour from 16,000 feet). His aim was to design a set of buildings with a gentle presence in the cityscape, in dialogue with Sydney’s harbor waters and the new precinct of Barangaroo South.  
The architectural vision was for a trio of crystalline towers, reflecting and refracting light, water, and sky, landing gently at ground level, connecting One Sydney Harbour to its precinct, place, and history.  
Across three towers (799 residences across Residences One, Residences Two, and Watermans Residences), One Sydney Harbour offered three categories of interiors: the Harbour Collection by Darling Associates; Signature, and Luxury Collection, both by State of Craft. Each category has different schemes from light to dark, designed with discerning palettes of timber and natural stone for consummate luxury and connection to Sydney’s landscape.  
Its unique crystalline facade is one of the most advanced of its kind. With over 18,000 facade panels (10,000 in Residences One) of high-quality, low-iron glass, it operates as a kinetic building skin, enabling natural ventilation and automated sun screening for optimal indoor temperatures with reduced reliance on air-conditioning.  

Organisation

Lendlease

Team

Lendlease - Developer & Builder
Architect - Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Interior Architect - State of Craft
Interior Architect - Darling Associates
Documenting Architect - PTW
Structural Engineer - Robert Bird
Town Planner - Michael Rowe
Facade Works - Arup

Project Brief

For residences worthy of the world’s most spectacular harbour, the architectural vision for One Sydney Harbour was to create an “experience living in the air and light, suspended between the water and sky.”

In built form, One Sydney Harbour responds to the Barangaroo master plan requirement for a cluster of residential towers of varying heights for this site. The trio of RPBW-designed glass towers reaches 250m, 210m, and 107m, with Residences One the tallest, housing 315 of the total 799 residential apartments.

Residences One articulates the shared architectural vision and logic of all three. Rising from a triangular plan, it orients to its siblings and setting to maximize solar and view access through the site and manage resident privacy within the cluster.

Its glass facade is one of the most advanced in the world, engineered to perform both from outside and within. Composed of low-iron glass for crystal clarity and reflectivity, the tower facades mirror the surrounding sky, city, and harbor, in ever-changing vignettes among the skylines.

The tower’s two-storey podium houses resident amenities, above a high-quality public domain at ground level, called The Strada. Beneath a glass canopy, this generous public plaza extends the precinct’s laneway network to the doorstep of Residences One – with restaurants and select services activating the building edge – offering access to Hickson Park.

Project Innovation/Need

From its advanced glass facade system to long-term operations, Residences One is the culmination of many innovations that helped reduce the building’s capital and operational carbon footprint.

Prototyped and tested on-site, the triple-layer facade of low-iron glass harnesses natural light and ventilation while dramatically reducing heat load. Each facade module has an internal double-glazed layer for heat and noise reduction, a central cavity to expel hot air, and a solar-activated roller blind to reflect glare, plus a third external single layer of glass assisting the architectural vision of a seamless crystalline facade.  

One Sydney Harbour was a pilot site for construction safety exceeding Australian standards by using mesh screens attached to the facade, enabling the installation of its glass facade modules and reducing the risk of people or materials falling.

Residences One is proudly part of Barangaroo’s Climate Active certification for precincts in operations. This was made possible through the integration of OSH to Barangaroo’s shared infrastructure utilities including an embedded energy network sharing renewable site-generated power; shared hot water and chilled harbour water for air-conditioning; recycled water for toilets and irrigation, diversion of 80% of waste from landfill.

Residence One has achieved a Green Star Design Review and is on track to receive a 6 Star Design and As Built v1.1 rating. This is the highest recognition for Green Star ratings representing world leadership in sustainable building practices by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA).

Design Challenge

The vision for One Sydney Harbour was to ‘have a gentle presence in the cityscape, with a sense of lightness and transparency, reflecting the harbour city around it.’

Rising 250 meters from the triangular grid, Residences One articulates this vision, oriented to its siblings for solar access and through-site views, managing privacy, capitalizing on views — northeast to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, west towards Sydney Fish Market, Balmain, and the distant Blue Mountains.

The advanced low-iron glass facade uses 1200mm wide modules for domestic-scaled windows, while the operable glass of the winter gardens is engineered to seamlessly integrate across the facade.

The interiors of the 315 residences set a new benchmark for luxury apartments in Australia. Designed to be timeless, not sacrificial, they are crafted from sustainable timbers and hand-selected stones from around the world, each telling a unique story.

The two-level podium of Residences One contains The Pool House and Garden Terrace, part of the luxurious suite of amenities for the exclusive use of residents and their guests. At ground level, a 40-metre glass-covered plaza (The Strada) connects Residences One to the precinct's public domain.

In the lobby, a textile artwork by First Nations woman Judy Watson grounds the tower to place evoking stories of water and the traditional fisherwomen of Warrane/Sydney. Other commissioned works include prints from the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, Lucy Simpson textile rug, and bronze sculptures by Mika Utzon Popov.

Sustainability

One Sydney Harbour is reflective of Lendlease’s environmental target of Net Zero carbon emissions business-wide by 2025 across Scopes 1 & 2. Residence One achieved a 6-Green-Star Rating from the GBCA through innovative management systems for water, energy, and waste, from construction through to lifetime operations.

One Sydney Harbour facades exceed BASIX Thermal Comfort requirements by over 60%, with the majority of sun-exposed facades equipped with integrated blinds (automated and operable). The combined effect of the blinds, inbuilt ventilation, and facade reflectivity improves indoor thermal comfort by around 50–70 percent over the standard 6mm clear glass facade, typical in Sydney residential developments.

Residences One is fully integrated into the shared utility network of Barangaroo South, both benefitting and contributing to Australia’s largest carbon-neutral precinct, where infrastructure includes: an embedded energy network distributing renewable site-generated power; shared hot water and heat rejection system using chilled harbour water for air-conditioning; recycled water for toilets and irrigation, diversion of 80% operational waste from landfill including organic waste. Around 97% reduction of monthly construction waste from One Sydney Harbour was diverted from landfill.  

As part of Barangaroo South, One Sydney Harbour is part of the C40 Cities Program of global exemplar sustainable urban developments. As a developer of Barangaroo South, Lendlease locally leads the (Australian Government) Climate Active certification for the precinct locally, together with Infrastructure NSW and Crown Resorts. Lendlease is also a signatory to the global Task For on Climate-related Financial Disclosures Framework (TCFD).