Edmund Barton Building - Design, Construction and Ownership

Design, Construction and Ownership

The building was designed and built for the Commonwealth government over the period 1970 to 1974. The building is of a precast, prestressed concrete construction. Its elements are radically simple: the entire structure was created using repeating patterns of just three different components: 26 metre-long facade beams, 16 metre-long floor beams or 'planks', and 1.5 metre column elements. It contains a total of 50 000 square metres of office space in seven wings, enclosing two courtyards. The building has undergone various subsequent modifications, notably including the retrofitting of cladding beneath the exposed first floor floor planks which, while improving thermal performance, has been criticised for obscuring the original design of the building.

In 1999, as part of a privatisation of Commonwealth assets, the building was sold to the Industry Superannuation Property Trust Pty Ltd, which almost immediately on-sold the site to Advance Property Fund (a subsidiary of Stockland, one of Australia's largest property groups) for A$70 million. In December 2008 was sold to Real IS AG for A$186 million.

The building was the subject of a major refurbishment in 2007–2009 estimated to cost $115 million, including increased security measures around the building perimeter (owing to the client needs of the new tenant, the Australian Federal Police), and reinvigoration of the courtyard areas. Planning for the refurbishment was undertaken by HBO+EMTB. The refurbishment caused some concern about the preservation of heritage values of the building, and about loss of public access to central open spaces and art works.