Designed by architects Peddle Thorp & Walker, construction of the 21 story tower now known as City Freeholds House began in 1981 and was completed in 1985.
Eastgate Gardens apartments in Bondi Junction were developed in 1983 as a mixed-use complex with two residential towers above a shopping centre, a car park, and podium-level amenities like a pool and tennis courts. The development was initially planned as a single 36-level tower but was reconfigured to two 18 storey towers for efficiency.
The 1980s saw Westfield Hurstville experience a period of success and expansion. At the same it became clear that the original structures had started to show their age. By 1988 the centre was already looking to expand to keep up with increased demand and a significant development was planned. The decade also saw the closure of the popular Snowy Hill Park on the rooftop in order to make way for multi-storey parking.
The Westside Pavilion Shopping Mall located in Los Angeles, California was developed by the Westfield Group and opened on May 31st, 1985. It was designed by The Jerde Partnership, the coordinating architectural firm of the 1984 Olympic Games, with a bold modern design of orange, lavender and green accent colours in geometrical shapes, evoking a Parisian shop-lined street. The mall connected an existing May Company department store at Pico and Overland with a brand new Nordstrom anchor store at Pico and Westwood. It was constructed at a cost of USD $90 million.
Completed in 1988, the Maritime Trade Towers project combined modern high-rise construction with the preservation of one of Sydney’s most significant heritage buildings, the Grafton Bond Store. Engineered by MPN and built by Leighton, the development comprises two commercial towers; AON Tower (35 storeys) and Symantec House (25 storeys), using reinforced concrete cores and post-tensioned floor slabs to maximise internal spans. The steep site falling from Kent Street toward Darling Harbour required a complex multi-level podium and deep-pile foundations anchored into Sydney sandstone. A careful build-over approach preserved the fragile 19th-century timber and masonry bond store, allowing the new glass curtain-wall towers to rise above and alongside the historic structure while maintaining a strong architectural dialogue between heritage and contemporary design.
Maintaining uninterrupted retail trading in a seismically active region was a major challenge for MPN during the extension of Sherman Oaks Fashion Square in Los Angeles. The project required a new trading floor above the existing centre, whose steel columns could not support additional loads. MPN’s solution was to suspend the floor from large steel trusses spanning up to 202 ft, each weighing up to 80 tons, assembled above the building and winched into position on a temporary gantry. The existing roof was then removed, and the new floor structure lowered into place, with carefully sequenced construction ensuring minimal disruption to trading. This innovative approach earned MPN the International Design and Development Award for Design Innovation. [Project Info]