Capella Sydney

Hospitality

Capella Sydney

Client

Pontiac Land Group

Service

Design Management

Completion

2023

Size

18,525 sqm

NSW Accommodation Australia Awards for Excellence 2024 Winner - Metropolitan Deluxe Hotel of the Year

UDIA NSW & Urban Property Group 2024 Awards for Excellence Winner - Retail Development | Finalist – Urban Renewal

INDE. Awards 2024 Honourable Mention – The Social Space | Shortlisted - The Health & Wellbeing Space

Urban Taskforce Australia Development Excellence Awards 2024 Winner - Hospitality Development

Property Council of Australia Innovation & Excellence Awards 2024 Winner - Best Heritage Development | Finalist – Best Tourism & Leisure Development

The Urban Developer Awards 2024 Winner - Development of the Year - Build-to-Rent, Hotels and Accommodation

HD Awards 2024 - Hospitality Design Winner - Luxury Hotel Public Spaces | Finalist – Guestrooms (All Segments); Wellness + Wellbeing

AHEAD Awards 2023 Ultimate Accolade - Global Hotel of the Year

AHEAD Asia Awards 2023 Winner - Hotel of the Year; Hotel Conversion; Lobby | Shortlisted – Bar, Club or Lounge; Guestroom; Restaurant; Spa & Wellness; Suite

HICAP Awards 2023 Winner - Reggie Shiu Development of the Year

Capella Sydney is the sensitive restoration and conversion of a state-listed government building, the former Department of Education, transformed into an award-winning luxury hotel for Asia-based owner Pontiac Land Group. The project represents one of Australia's most complex heritage refurbishments.

Michelle led the reimagining of this asset, including the introduction of three levels of basement, a new double-height atrium and a four-storey roof extension, all within a tight urban block surrounded by busy roads on all four sides.

Requiring rigorous design management across a technically demanding programme, the project involved the careful integration of significant new architectural elements within a protected existing fabric, balancing design ambition with heritage sensitivity throughout delivery.

Anthony Metcalfe

Hotel Manager

“Working alongside Michelle during the Capella Sydney project was a pleasure and an experience that underpinned the success of our opening and the project as a whole. In a professional first time for many of us, the design and the service style of the hotel have a level of connection that has an unequivocal impact of the overall experience of our guests. Her vision and attention to manage and deliver the project as a whole was extremely engaged. Michelle intensely focused on the needs of us as the client to deliver a space that worked holistically, with uncompromising and fastidious attention to detail that meant she was often manoeuvring the difficult balance between owner, operator and the construction team. Her firm attention to the most intricate of details, whilst maintaining an overarching view to the delivery of the project, was not lost on us as the client and was central to our successful opening.”

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Key Outcomes

Navigated a complex multi-stakeholder approval pathway spanning heritage authorities, government and statutory bodies, managing approvals as programme-critical risks throughout delivery
Scope and brief evolved continuously as onsite investigations and heritage discoveries required ongoing design responses, actively managed to minimise impact on cost, programme and design quality.
Creation of a subterranean service tunnel below road to consolidate hotel back-of-house and create operational efficiencies between the Education Building and neighbouring Lands Building
Project delivered through concurrent pandemic, bushfire and unprecedented rainfall disruptions.

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