MAQ
MAQ at 7 Macquarie Street, Parramatta, operates as a multidimensional intervention within a rapidly transitioning urban fabric. Situated at the western edge of Parramatta’s CBD, the project embodies a dialogue between habitation, commerce, and the dynamic forces of a city in flux. Anchored in its context yet forward-looking, the design is a study in adaptability and layered complexity.
This 16-story mixed-use building orchestrates 98 residential apartments, strata offices, and ground-floor retail into a cohesive narrative. The podium reinterprets the sandstone strata of Parramatta Park in a contemporary language, grounding the project both materially and culturally. Above, metallic façades shift in rhythm and texture, calibrating to solar exposure and proximity. These responsive skins balance functional performance with sculptural expression, creating a form that evolves with the city’s light and life.
| Location: | Parramatta, New South Wales |
| Date: | 2022 |
| Site Area: | 1,877 m2 |
| Floor Area: | 11,262 m2 |
| Density: | 98 units – 425 m2 retail – 2,725 m2 commercial |
The site sits on the periphery of Parramatta’s urban core, bordered by historic parkland, emerging commercial zones, and layers of transit infrastructure. This edge condition, both physical and symbolic, informed the project’s permeable ground plane. Flood-resistant terraces frame an amphitheater-like public realm, inviting the city into dialogue with its inhabitants while elevating above the functional challenges of its topography.
MAQ does not merely place housing within the city but reimagines how people live within it. Apartments are designed with a spectrum of configurations, prioritizing flexibility and functionality. The introduction of “family hubs” in 2-bedroom layouts responds to contemporary living needs, offering adaptive spaces for work, play, and growth. This acknowledgment of life’s fluid stages is rare in high-rise design and sets a precedent for urban adaptability.
The building operates at the intersection of history, infrastructure, and ambition. Its material choices—sandstone podiums, reflective metal façades—mediate between the tactile memory of Parramatta and its aspirational skyline. Communal spaces extend this ethos, offering landscaped sanctuaries on the third level that frame the park and cityscape, reconnecting residents to the pulse of the broader environment.
MAQ resists the static. It is an urban participant, a spatial and performative response to a city undergoing reinvention. A catalyst for conversation between past, present, and future Parramatta.
First Nations Popup
Fuse Architects acknowledges the First Nations peoples, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, as the Traditional Custodians of the diverse lands where we live, work, and create. We admire their deep and enduring connections to the land, sea, and community. We are committed to meaningful dialogue, as we work together to honour the past and shape a harmonious future. We pay our respects to the wisdom of their Elders, past, present, and emerging.
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