Commercial — Design Competition

118 Mount Street — Zurich Tower

The Project

118 Mount Street is a 29-storey A-grade commercial tower on the eastern edge of North Sydney's CBD, completed in 2020 as the new Australian and New Zealand headquarters for Zurich Financial Services. Designed by FJMT Studio, the building delivers 20,600 square metres of premium office space across paired curving tower forms, a composition that marks the gateway to North Sydney from the harbour approaches below. Developed by White & Partners and Generate Property Group, constructed by Roberts Pizzarotti, and purchased during construction by CBRE Global Investors as their first Australian acquisition.

The Challenge

Zurich's existing headquarters at 5 Blue Street was reaching the end of its commercial life, and the company wanted a purpose-built building that would reflect its standing as a global insurer while responding to the transformation underway in North Sydney's commercial precinct. The Mount Street site offered a prominent corner position with unimpeded views across Lavender Bay to the Harbour Bridge and Sydney CBD, but winning the design competition meant demonstrating a clear vision for how a commercial tower could be both architecturally distinctive and operationally excellent, with flexible workplace floors, premium amenity and a facade expression that set it apart from the blue-glass towers dominating the surrounding skyline.

The existing Zurich building at 5 Blue Street and surrounds, looking north-west across the North Sydney CBD prior to the new tower

My Approach

I contributed to the design competition as a Graduate Architect within the FJMT team. My role involved preparing diagrams, design report documentation and basic fit-out plans that helped communicate the design proposition to the client. The competition-winning scheme composed curved linear forms into a workplace tower: a lower street-defining element that lifts visitors into a warm arrival experience across a two-level podium, paired tower forms above creating open 810-square-metre workplace floors filled with natural light, and a sky terrace near the top for shared outdoor amenity.

Render of the upper tower facade, curved gold-toned glass with recessed balconies framing views across Lavender Bay to the Harbour Bridge and Sydney CBD

The facade was the centrepiece, an innovative cladding system of fine bronze-toned profiles that gives the tower a softness and organic quality unusual in commercial architecture. Helping to document and communicate that design intent during the competition phase taught me how much the quality of a submission's presentation matters in winning institutional-scale work.

The Zurich Tower entry at ground level, curved gold canopy, glazed lobby and landscaped forecourt with pedestrians

The podium at dusk from the street corner, horizontal bronze louvres wrapping the lower levels with warm light spilling from the lobby behind

The Outcome

FJMT won the competition and completed the building following my departure from the firm. Construction finished five weeks ahead of schedule in November 2020 despite bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic. The building has since achieved a 5.5-star NABERS Energy rating, 6-star Green Star Performance, and Climate Active Carbon Neutral certification.

The tower under construction, looking up at the curved facade with building hoist and scaffolding still attached

For me, this competition was an early lesson in how design narratives, diagrammatic analysis and workplace planning studies come together to win major projects. It also deepened my understanding of the North Sydney commercial precinct alongside the concurrent 5 Blue Street feasibility work. That combination of competition-stage communication skills and commercial workplace knowledge is something I carry directly into the way I present and manage projects at Yaxley Studio today.