Premiere Tower, a roughly 740-foot skyscraper designed by Australian firm Elenberg Fraser, has gained approval to be built in the coastal metropolis of Melbourne. Sited at 134 Spencer Street, the most obvious feature of the tower is the wavy exterior, stressed by bulges and curves, used as a building technique to conserve energy. But the design is grabbing headlines due to the firm’s inspiration for the shape: a Beyoncé music video.
According to the Melbourne-based firm’s site, the curvaceous form of the project alludes to the rippling sheaths of fabric seen throughout the iconic singer’s music video “Ghost.” The video was originally a part of her self-titled album, which was kept a secret and released without any promotion back in Dec. 2013, under the name “Haunted,” and then later produced as a stand-alone piece and re-titled as “Ghost.”
All Beyoncé references aside (insert cheesy joke about how she really runs the world here), the 68-story tower features “parametric modeling techniques” to effectively redistribute the building’s mass, according to the firm’s site. In doing so, the designers achieve a strong and sustainable development that can endure wind and temperate climate conditions.
The mixed-use building, which was approved in May, will feature 160 hotel rooms, 660 apartments, and retail space.
Singaporean property developer Koh Wee Meng’s company Fragrance Group will back the project. A completion date for the project has not been released yet.
Elenberg Fraser
Elenberg Fraser
Elenberg Fraser
