Following the detailed look at The Old Clare Hotel’s early construction in AR137’s ‘concept to completion’ feature, ADR can now announce that the project will launch this year in July.

The development, part of Frasers Broadway’s Kensington Street Precinct, unites the former Carlton United Brewery Administration Building (CUB) and the Clare Hotel in Sydney.

The project’s architects, Tonkin Zulaikha Greer (TZG), spoke to AR of the need to marry the ‘inherited buildings’ or ‘artefacts’ of the CUB and Clare Hotel to their “historical and cultural parameters”. This was achieved through an archaeological approach to dusting off both buildings.

Careful selection and preservation of the CUB and Clare Hotel’s existing design and construction elements will link the two buildings to their modern reinterpretation. Coupled with this conservationist approach, a connecting volume, or glazed box, will physically stitch the two buildings together, reiterating this link between their identities as historical buildings within a modern design framework.

The Old Clare Hotel will feature 62 accommodation rooms, with two significant rooms of the CUB – previously used as a sampling room for Carlton Brewery ales and a boardroom – instead being reinterpreted as hotel suites.

The old pub’s original ground floor frontage will host the hotel’s bar and reception area and as Unlisted Collection phrase it the area will relive the hotel’s heritage by being a space ‘that playfully looks to its own history’.

The CUB Administration Building will host a roof top bar and pool, while the Old Clare Hotel will include a private gym and day spa, as well as a heritage restored meeting space.

The restaurants will enhance the development’s position as a cultural precinct, with Clayton Wells’ (Momofuku Seiobo, Quay) first restaurant, Automata; Sam Miller’s (Noma) first solo restaurant, Silvereye; and British-chef Jason Atherton’s (Pollen Street Social) first Australian venue, Kensington Street Social.

Leading Australian architectural practice Tonkin Zulaikha Greer are responsible for last year’s IDEA nominated Virgin Australia Lounge in Sydney, the Carriageworks Arts Centre, Canberra’s internationally acclaimed National Arboretum, as well as major urban design and masterplanning projects throughout the country.