Beverley Park, southern Sydney, NSW, apartment block

This southern Sydney development’s local area was recently rezoned from R2-R3 in height limit, from 7.5m to 21m, which attracted developers’ interests. And again in this apartment block, our pronounced skill and discipline in getting greater use out of constrained spaces reveals itself. Where the... read more

Mount Druitt house, NSW

With its beginnings in 1930s Bauhaus Europe, the simple positioning of a single rectangular form for primary living is an eternal expression of modernist residential design. This house’s street elevation contains raw concrete precast cladding and Corten (rusted) steel to cast shadows into the double-storey entry... read more

Kellyville house, NSW

A modern family home in the rapidly growing northern Sydney suburb of Kellyville, this dwelling sits on a site in which many if not each of its neighbours seem to be competing to shout loudest by building the biggest houses their plots can contain. Using simple materials, a combination... read more

Hotel, Gold Coast, Queensland

Now built and in operation as a hotel on the Gold Coast in Queensland, our client, KDV Sport, originally had a vision to create, in the form of “micro-apartments”, a top-class international student accommodation and educational facility for young sporting individuals and teams competing both at the... read more

KDV Golf and Tennis Academy, Carrara Gardens, Gold Coast, QLD

QUEENSLAND AWARDS NEWS On Friday, June 23, 2017, Hiromi’s design for the KDV Gold Coast Golf and Tennis Academy won the 2017 Queensland Institute of Architects’ state design award for commercial architecture. Opened in October 2016, the KDV Golf and Tennis Academy project is located near Nerang, on... read more

Introducing The Mermaid

The Mermaid was the inevitable epithet for this project, whose floor plan so clearly draws on the form of a mythical sea creature with the head and trunk of a woman and the tail of a fish. At the end of 2016, we were invited to submit this concept for... read more

Parramatta River waterfront residence, NSW

When you start a new practice, it is hard to anticipate where clients will come from, especially when you don’t start out with any particular ambitions to design houses. This early design and the resulting project is the result of a chance conversation and the exploration of... read more

Design excellence in Parramatta, NSW

For a startup only 18 months in age, in October 2015, Shiro Architects joined an exclusive club when it competed on the basis of design excellence in Parramatta, NSW, in a paid, invitation-only design competition hosted by Parramatta City Council. The contest was to design what would become a 23-storey... read more

A first overseas project for Shiro

It is a feather in any architect's cap to score an overseas project. For Shiro Architects, 2016 began in Fiji, sizing up a site for the house of a major figure in Australia’s construction industry, on Vanua Levu, Fiji's second largest island. Vanua Levu is less tourist-oriented than Viti Levu, and... read more

Shiro designs manufacturing plants for the “next silicon”

At the beginning of 2015, Shiro Architects worked at an early stage with a highly innovative organisation, at that time called NanoCarbon, which had plans to build small-scale manufacturing plants for the “next silicon”. NanoCarbon is now known as Imagine IM, and started its life with a vision to be... read more

St Marys apartment development, NSW

Shiro Architects has been approached to work on the feasibility of a residential development at the town centre of St Marys, NSW, close to its railway station. The proposed site allows for ground and first floor commercial use, and the client wishes for both West Lane and Queen Street ground... read more

Gordon House, NSW

It looks likely that the design for a modern home, the Gordon House, is about to win Shiro Architects unexpected publicity plaudits. In January 2015, we spent two days in a workshop with a charming, super-intelligent couple wishing to redevelop their house in Sydney’s leafy northern suburb of Gordon. As former... read more

North Apartments, Goulburn Street, Sydney, NSW

At Harry Seidler and Associates, Hiromi Lauren delivered the developer of North Apartments, Goulburn Street, Sydney, a windfall exceeding $5 million. That was an extra $550,000 apartment on each of eleven of the building's sixteen floors, yet still remaining within the existing FSR. That makes five to six million dollars’ difference. Find... read more

Meriton Tower, Sydney CBD

Hiromi: “Harry Seidler and I designed Meriton Tower together. Meriton’s Harry Triguboff owned the Village Cinema site, which had its stage one DA approved design done by Hassell. The City of Sydney had just then introduced its competitive design process for design excellence, and as the client, Harry Triguboff,... read more

Sydney Fish Market gate design

Hiromi: “First of all, for the Fish Market gate, I came up with really big Calatrava-style arch but it couldn’t be built as we had to use the existing foundation already built according to a previous architect’s scheme, meaning we had to stick with its column positions. “But the previous... read more

Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Centre

One of Australia’s first Indigenous theme parks, Tjapukai Cultural Park is an Aboriginal cultural centre located in Carvonica, just outside Cairns in far north Queensland. Its purpose is to educate and inform visitors to the city, especially those from overseas, about Aboriginal culture. Hiromi: “This is a replacement design for... read more

National Arboretum, Canberra

National Arboretum, Canberra, Freefall Experience Design Ideas Competition entry, July 2014. Hiromi: “The intent of our entry’s design was to create a striking structure, an egg-shaped pod with a compelling story, in line with the competition’s aim of increasing the number of people visiting the National Arboretum Canberra. “We aimed to... read more

200 George Street, Sydney, redevelopment

In 2011, Hiromi worked in conjunction with collins and turner architects, MBMO Architects’ Sven Ollmann and Plus Minus Design’s Phillip Arnold on collins and turners’ shortlisted entry into the design excellence competition for the $215m redevelopment of Mirvac’s 200 George Street in Sydney’s CBD. The brief called for a detailed... read more