Sydney’s Atlassian Central Tower has officially surpassed Milwaukee’s Ascent to become the world’s tallest hybrid timber tower, a landmark moment for the $1.45 billion, 39-storey plyscraper now closing in on its full height above Central Station with crews working through the Easter long weekend. Wood Central understands that work has continued unabated, with the massive steel exoskeleton advancing over the cross-laminated timber and glulam frame, as focus shifts decisively to the seven four-storey internal timber habitats that sit at the project’s commercial and structural heart.
Designed by New York-based SHoP and BVN, the tower’s seven habitats each comprise three levels of cross-laminated timber flooring sandwiched between steel-and-concrete mega floor plates, stacked across 21 of the building’s 39 levels above a seven-storey concrete podium. New images obtained by Wood Central show the steel exoskeleton advancing over the CLT and glulam frame above Sydney’s Central Station, with the completed Onyx Solar louvre glazing now visible across the tower’s lower levels.
“The timber floors are connected to the concrete floors via drag straps,” said Tim Allen, timber structural lead at Taylor Thomson Whitting (TTW), who addressed Timber Construct — Australia’s only dedicated timber construction conference — in late 2024, describing the lateral design as one of the most advanced anywhere in the world. “Why build a 39-storey building partly out of timber? Because it comes down to using the right timber for the right application,” Allen said.
In total, more than 30,000 cubic metres of timber — supplied by European manufacturers Stora Enso and Wiehag — have been incorporated across those 21 timbered storeys, substituting vast quantities of concrete and steel in one of the most technically complex hybrid construction systems ever attempted at this scale. The project is set to reduce embodied carbon by at least 50 per cent during construction and operate entirely on renewable power.
The speed of the build has been a direct product of the hybrid system itself. “That’s because we’re jumping up five levels every time, and while we’re going up, we’re coming back and infilling with the timber within each of those five-storey zones,” said Peter Morley, the Dexus project director overseeing the build, who confirmed last October that the team had “broken the back on the most technical, structural phase of the project.”
The milestone arrives as Atlassian Central enters what Peter Morley, the Dexus project director overseeing the build, previously described as its decisive final phase — the period in which glazing crews and structural teams close in from both ends of the tower simultaneously. “That’s because we’re jumping up five levels every time, and while we’re going up, we’re coming back and infilling with the timber within each of those five-storey zones,” Morley said.
Atlassian Central is co-owned by Dexus and Atlassian, with Built and Japanese construction giant Obayashi appointed as builders, both of whom have confirmed the building remains on schedule to top out later this year. Atlassian is set to take occupation of five of the seven timber habitats in late 2028 following a full fit-out, at which point the building will accommodate 5,000 occupants across 39 levels.
- Wood Central has followed Atlassian Central since it broke ground in August 2022 — from the first reports of a timber building rising inside a steel skyscraper, to last month’s exclusive images of the solar skin closing across the facade as glazing crews pushed upward through the tower’s lower half.
