The Australian Financial Review - Tina Perinotto

With a name like workplace 6, there will be no doubting the function of Sydney's latest office building at Darling Island on the city fringe.

But inside the building, a kind of horizontal tower with massive floor plates, joint developers GPT and Citta Property Group hope that other equally important attributes will be just as obvious.

The building will aim to attain a 6-star rating, in future evidence that the competition is getting greener in the world of offices.

Last month Multiplex announced that its new offices for Macquarie Bank would be 5-star but hoping for 6-star.  Regardless of who wins the race in Sydney - Melbourne's CH2 building was the first 6-star one in Australia - workplace 6 will guarantee a few firsts.

According to the developerse, construction is set to start with no precommitments - possibly Australia's first green spec office building, signalling confidence in both parts of that product, environmental friendliness and the office market.

Key features in the 18,000 square metre building over six levels will include huge water savings; wastewater will be sourced from sewers, treated to potable standards and then used for toilet flushing and also offered back to the public for landscap irrigation.

Enery efficiency will also be very good, with consumption down by 80 per cent and greehouse gas reduction of 50 per cent.

Despite enormous floor plates of 3593 square metres, a central atrium will allow exceptional levels of natural light.  No point on each floor is more than 12 metres from an external window or atrium.

Glare is controlled with external shading devices such as the metal fins of the light shelves and large pre-cast concrete elements that are part of the south-western facade.  Blinds are provided on the inside of the external windows.