Danks Street Offices / by Tony Owen Partners

The new Danks & Bourke strata commercial building is a refurbishment of a 1960's concrete furniture warehouse. It is located in the former industrial area of Danks Street, which has lately become a trendy hub for the designer commercial set. The triple-frontage building contains 4,000sqm of office space over two levels, a supermarket and specialty retail stores on the ground floor.

The vibrant café and retail precinct on the ground floor will be an extension of the working environment. Over recent years Danks Street has evolved into an epicentre of style, colour and the café scene for the creativity set. Tony Owen Partners , who are at the forefront of three-dimensional digital architecture, used this buzz as his inspiration for Danks & Bourke, which should be completed by November.

"The building will suit people in creative professions who benefit from a stimulating environment and a more casual working style," said Mr Owen. "It will be a fun place to work and will have a fluidity that promotes social interaction among occupants."

We sought to explore new territory in office design.
The building consists of smaller strata tenancies around shared lounges, meeting rooms and other facilities. The strata suites which are more like modular pods than offices. These versatile spaces have glass walls at the front and rear, polished concrete floors and private furnished balconies.

Because the building is so deep, we created a central void space to bring light into the building and create a central street. The central void naturally illuminates the funky lounges, avant-garde sculptures, metallic surfaces, frosted glass walkways and twin tangerine glass conference room boxes. We used translucent signage graphics on all glass surfaces for a consistent design theme throughout.

We replaced the existing solid facades with full glazing and balconies. We used the same fluid lines of the interior graphics for the balconies and facades to create a distinctive identity. We explored the use of twisted metal panels for the sun louvers. These louvers change colour from different angles.

The fluidity of its lines, bold swatches of colour and 'contorted' metal louvres that cast ever-changing shapes and shadows on the facade are in keeping with the artistic precinct, which is the hub of a thriving gallery and design scene.