LUXURY PENTHOUSES REDEFINE HIGH-END LIVING IN NORWEST
Banksia’s four-bedroom penthouses offer house-like space with single-level convenience, designed by Richard Archer for discerning downsizers.
3 min
A new benchmark for luxury living has arrived in Sydney’s Hills District, with the release of a collection of four-bedroom penthouses at Norwest Quarter, designed by acclaimed architect Richard Archer.
These residences, part of the Banksia building, promise a rare combination of spacious, house-like proportions and single-level convenience. They cater to high-net-worth buyers looking to downsize without compromise.
The Banksia penthouses are located in the Norwest Quarter in Norwest, a leafy suburb in Sydney’s Hills district, about 35 km from the city.
Mulpha, a leading property developer and investment group, developed the precinct to create a sustainable, mixed-use community. It integrates the penthouses with retail, green spaces, and lifestyle amenities within a beautiful natural setting.
“With expansive outdoor terraces, panoramic views, and open-plan interiors, these homes offer a rare sense of space in apartment living,” said Tim Spencer, Head of Development at Mulpha.
“They are designed to maximise light, airflow, and indoor-outdoor living. Each penthouse also incorporates custom finishes, high-end appliances, and adaptable spaces to suit many lifestyles.”
The penthouses boast concealed butler’s pantries, integrated smart home technology, and master retreats.
According to Richard Archer, director of Archer Design, the design challenge was to create a home that feels as open as a house but with the ease of apartment living.
“We wanted to craft a space that brings the outdoors in, with terraces that extend the living areas and maximise views of the Blue Mountains and surrounding landscape,” he said.
Australia is seeing a growing trend of luxury downsizing. Affluent buyers seek spacious, well-appointed apartments that provide high-end amenities without the maintenance of a traditional house.
Long associated with family homes, the Hills District in NSW is seeing an increasing demand for premium apartment living that doesn’t sacrifice space or prestige.
Norwest Quarter’s masterplan incorporates green spaces, sustainable design, and premium lifestyle amenities, including a resident-only mineral pool, fitness facilities, and a private garden sanctuary.
It is also near the Norwest Metro Station and local retail hubs. The Norwest Metro Station provides easy and quick access to the city with direct links to Barangaroo and Chatswood.
Norwest Quarter is Australia’s most ambitious zero-carbon mixed-use precinct, placing sustainability at the forefront of its design.
The spokesperson said, “With 70% of the development dedicated to green spaces, the master plan integrates tree-lined plazas, walking trails, and energy-efficient building design, offering a balance of urban convenience and environmental consciousness.”
For more information, visit norwestquarter.com.au/penthouses
For Central Element, the start of work at Pearl represents another step in the company’s growing eastern suburbs pipeline.
All three vehicles will form part of a broader charitable initiative benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the American Red Cross and Starlight Children’s Foundation
Jack Freeman believes the most compelling interiors are not decorated, but collected. The FREEMAN & CO founder creates layered, personal spaces shaped by art, travel and craftsmanship.
4 min
For Jack Freeman, a compelling interior should not look as though it was completed in a single shopping trip.
The founder and designer behind FREEMAN & CO prefers rooms that develop through art, travel, commissioned furniture and objects collected over time. It is an approach that treats the home less as a decorative project and more as an evolving portrait of its owner.
“I am a true believer in collecting versus decorating,” Freeman says.
That distinction underpins the international practice he has built across private residences, hotels, property developments, yachts and private aviation. Its projects stretch from Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay and Toorak to Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean.
Although the locations and architecture vary considerably, the work is connected by a restrained design language. Natural stone, warm timbers and sculptural furniture establish the foundation, while art, bespoke lighting and individual objects give each interior its identity.
The objective is not to overwhelm a room with obvious symbols of expense. It is to create an environment that feels calm, layered and particular to the people living within it.
“The greatest luxury isn’t about excess,” Freeman says. “It’s about creating an oasis where you come home and feel immediately grounded — effortlessly chic and deeply personal.”
Collecting instead of decorating
Decorating can imply the completion of a room: selecting the required furniture, filling the available walls and producing a coherent finished image.
Collecting is less conclusive.
A collected interior has room to change as its owners travel, discover artists, inherit pieces or reassess how they use their home. Its character comes from the relationship between objects rather than adherence to a single brand or season.
That does not mean placing unrelated pieces together without discipline. The designer must understand scale, proportion, material and provenance well enough to create a dialogue between them.
A contemporary artwork might sit beside a historic piece of furniture. A precisely detailed new interior may be interrupted by an irregular object made by hand. Smooth stone can be balanced by timber, textiles or a patinated metal surface that becomes richer with age.
The tension between those elements is part of the appeal.
For Freeman, art is not an accessory to be added once the furniture plan is complete. It forms part of the architecture and atmosphere of the room from the beginning.
Lighting is considered in the same way. Beyond its practical purpose, a bespoke fitting can operate as a suspended sculpture, changing both the room’s composition and the way its materials are experienced after dark.
A design perspective shaped by travel
International travel plays a significant role in Freeman’s creative process.
Design fairs such as PAD Paris and Salone del Mobile in Milan provide opportunities to encounter emerging designers, established galleries, new materials and collectible furniture away from the filter of social media.
More spontaneous discoveries can prove equally important.
“Sometimes it’s the simple things,” Freeman says. “That piece found on a shopping trip with a client in Paris, stumbling across an artisan’s workshop, or a special memory that forms the narrative of the story.”
Objects selected during travel bring more than visual interest into a home. They carry an association with a place, maker or experience, giving the client a connection that cannot be reproduced by ordering an entire interior from a catalogue.
Freeman’s influences are international, but his projects are not conceived as replicas of Parisian, Milanese or Californian style. Each commission responds to its architecture, setting, natural light and the daily lives of its occupants.
A waterfront Sydney residence demands a different treatment from a Mayfair townhouse. A Caribbean estate shaped by brutalist architecture and reflecting pools calls for another response again.
The designer’s role is to absorb those references without allowing them to overwhelm the individual qualities of the property.
Designing the complete experience
FREEMAN & CO extends beyond conventional interior decoration.
The practice’s stated services include interior design and architecture, project management, property acquisition, development advice, concept design, documentation, furniture and lighting design, procurement and art curation.
That breadth allows the team to become involved before a room’s dimensions and finishes are fixed.
Early participation can be important at the top end of the residential market, where architecture, landscape, interiors, technology and art must operate as one environment. Decisions about ceiling heights, wall dimensions, sightlines and lighting can directly affect where art is installed or how custom furniture is proportioned.
The practice can then carry those decisions through to procurement and final installation, maintaining the design narrative as a project moves between architects, builders, specialist craftspeople, dealers and suppliers.
Its residential portfolio includes a South Coast retreat conceived as an escape from urban life, a Caribbean estate with reflecting pools, an East Coast-inspired Palm Beach residence and a Mayfair townhouse organised around an expressive drawing room.
The studio also says it has worked on highly tailored Sydney residences with values exceeding $100 million, although the private nature of such commissions means individual addresses and clients are not always disclosed.
A home that can keep changing
The risk in creating a perfectly resolved interior is that it can become too static — a composition that looks exceptional in photographs but leaves little room for life.
Freeman sees the home as something that should evolve with its owners.
“I love the evolution of design,” he says. “We are talking about people’s lives, and as they evolve, so too should their private sanctuaries.”
That evolution might involve adding art, reupholstering a significant piece, adapting rooms as a family changes or making space for objects gathered through future travels.
The original design needs to be strong enough to accommodate those layers.
This may be the clearest expression of Freeman’s approach to luxury. It is not simply access to rare stone, collectible furniture or commissioned craftsmanship. It is the creation of a personal environment whose meaning deepens rather than diminishes with time.
Fact box
- Designer: Jack Freeman
- Role: Founder and managing director
- Practice: FREEMAN & CO
- Base: Australia, with international projects
- Project locations named by the practice: Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay, Toorak, Palm Beach, the NSW South Coast, Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean
- Sectors: Private residences, hotels, residential developments, private aviation and superyachts
- Services: Interior design and architecture, property development, project management, property acquisition, documentation, furniture and lighting design, FF&E procurement, interior dressing and art curation
- Design philosophy: Collected, personal interiors shaped by art, craftsmanship, travel and enduring materials
- Website: free-man.co
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