EMI Australia

Sydney, Australia

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EMI Australia

Sydney, Australia

Firm

The world is round

Type

Commercial › Office

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2014

SIZE

1000 sqft - 3000 sqft

BUDGET

$1M - 5M

The project to find and fit out a headquarters
for music company EMI Australia was very
much driven by its Chairman, Mark Poston.
Stuck in a building in Cremorne that everyone
hated, but tied to a lease, there was plenty of time
to search for a new location. The building in Flinders
Street, Surry Hills, came up on the radar very early
and, despite looking at many other sites, Poston was
convinced from the beginning that Flinders Street
would make the ideal home for EMI.
To begin with he felt this was where EMI belonged,
if only because many people in the music industry
lived in the area. And, despite a certain coldness to
what is essentially a concrete box, Poston loved the
industrial rawness of the place, which he felt gave it a
very contemporary feel. He also loved the ‘retail presence’
afforded by large windows looking out onto busy
Flinders Street. He saw the possibility of showcasing
EMI and their artists. In the event, this evolved into
the EMI ‘Art Projects’ which presents up-and-coming
artists and local street art.
Part of Poston’s plan for the building was changing
the street address from Flinders Street to Hutchison
Lane, effectively the rear entrance. Not only would
this generate a certain mystique to the building, but it
would also allow a degree of privacy for the artists and
clientele entering and leaving the building.
Finally, the building brought with it quite a lot of
history. This had effectively begun with a makeover by
the legendary Burley Katon Halliday (BKH) for Space
Furniture (the building was later occupied by ECC
and Gelosa). BKH had stripped the building back to its
concrete shell, sandblasting the concrete back so that
you could see the aggregate. They had also installed
two stairways which set up an intriguing spatial
dynamic which Andrew Cliffe – Director of The World
is Round, who were commissioned to design the fit-out
for EMI – describes as a “kind of figure of eight” and
which he was keen to exploit to generate a constantly
interesting spatial experience with continuously
emerging views and the feeling that everything and
everyone was integrated into an exciting whole.
Determined to respect the original BKH makeover,
Cliffe says, “There was a component there of making
sure you didn’t wreck what was already there. It was
important to figure out what not to do as much as what
to do. The idea was not to fix anything into that slab
that didn’t need to be there, to keep it as honest and
raw and as clean as possible. Also making sure that we
didn’t inhibit the flow of the space and to respect the
light and the views.”

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EMI Australia

Sydney, Australia

EMI Australia

Sydney, Australia

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team