BPG Developments came to us with a site flanked by the heritage-listed Goldsworthy and Perkins Boot Factory—built in 1889, all arched openings and tactile brickwork. Newstead is transitioning from warehouses and woolstores to a riverside residential neighbourhood, but its industrial character remains embedded in the streetscape.

The opportunity was to create a new tower that could acknowledge the boot factory’s presence and give this growing part of Brisbane a building that feels like it belongs to both its past and its future. We studied the factory’s rhythm, its datum lines, the way those arches frame depth and shadow, and asked ourselves, how could we carry those qualities forward through contemporary form and materiality?

A sculpted masonry podium anchors the street. Deep arched cuts reveal a planted garden lobby, and offer glimpses inward while echoing the factory next door. The tower rises with fine slab edges and a delicate metal screen proportioned like brickwork, contemporary but referencing what came before. Ground-level retail at the corner carves out sightlines back to the heritage building, re-establishing its presence in the public realm. Planting threads upward through the tower, reinforcing Brisbane’s subtropical identity. At the rooftop, a 1,380sqm wellness level with lap pool, sauna and yoga deck captures panoramic river and city views, to be a communal sanctuary for 123 households above Newstead’s evolving streetscape