Following a competitive expression of interest, the City of Sydney recently commissioned Adjaye Associates and renowned locally based Aboriginal artist Daniel Boyd to design the scheme for 180 George Street, which comprises a new public square, plaza building, and public artwork near Circular Quay. Currently scheduled for a 2022 completion date, the development will be Adjaye Associates' first Sydney project. 

The team's design is rooted in lost history and revolves around the themes of heritage, identity, and place. Inspired by Aboriginal dot painting, one of the building's distinct features is a 27x34m perforated canopy of scattered, circular mirror-lined openings that will filter dappled light onto the plaza below. The same circular pattern continues onto the paving of the plaza through a series of steel circles and cylindrical glass skylights, which allows light to filter all the way down to the bicycle facility beneath the plaza. 

Drawing from unitary forms and placemaking in Aboriginal culture, the building's details are kept simple. An open cafe, gallery space, and garden terrace are all “wrapped under a reduced utilitarian form”. The pitched roof of the community building refers to the primary silhouette of early settlers’ houses, the firm says.

According to Adjaye Associates, the project is based on “the reconciliation of cultures and defining identity in an ever changing world”. It is a “hybrid form that merges the Aboriginal origins with the legacy of early settlers and the industrial materiality and language of the nearby harbor”. 

David Adjaye hopes it will serve as “a generative place for people to connect, recharge, reflect and take a pause from the rhythm of a fast-transforming city.”