A rare 1970s heritage-listed commercial office building has been conserved and adaptively re-used as apartments at 161 Brougham Street Woolloomooloo.

Apartment 309 has just been sold through Angelo Bouras and Thomas Arthurs

Real Estate For Sale – 309/161 Brougham Street – Potts Point , NSW (rwebay.com.au)

The apartment is part of today’s IDA apartment complex.

The site originally contained a building named Telford Lodge as well as a commercial office building named after the firm which occupied it, Calidad.

Its dormer roof line creates a silhouette echoing that original use.

The whole site was redeveloped after 2012 to create 30 apartments which sit atop a massive, 1820s convict-hewn, sandstone wall on its western side.

The wall was described by the Sydney Monitor in 1833 as “quality stone and a mine of wealth”.

The Calidad building was originally designed by prominent Sydney architect, Ian Mackay, who confirmed his use of the “Sydney School” of design. This design philosophy respected the intrinsic quality of the materials by using them in a robust manner.

Heroic cross-cut, rustic timber beams, trusses and iron bolts are now a feature of the new design, deliberately retained from the original building. They highlight the internal ceiling height which is about 5.5 metres and which create clerestory windows overlooking the city skyline.

by Andrew Woodhouse

Heritage Solutions