A New Era in Sustainable Design - Strategic Partnership Profile
A New Era in Sustainable Design.
Fraser & Partners and XO Projects are excited to announce a new strategic partnership to create a collaborative joint venture now active in the Middle East.
This alliance merges Fraser & Partners twenty five years of residential architecture with XO Projects extensive experience in precinct design and masterplanning.
We have brought together our experience in residential architecture and sustainable design to create a new line of buildings, which are deeply climatological, systematised and low energy.
These buildings create total environments that suggest a new future for high-rise residential architecture and construction in the Middle East.
The world has changed. Architecture must change with it. That’s why we resolve issues, not briefs.
Drawing on the modernists who have always inspired us, we intervene at the point that nature and technology converge, harnessing both as tools to design architecture as a user interface.
Our work is defined by an understanding of how buildings are made, how materials come together, how systems perform and how structures endure.
We believe that the only tranformative
building is
the one that gets built.
0.1a Our Methodology
Fraser & Partners was born of a desire to address the challenges presented by an architectural environment with a process that is slower, deeper and fundamentally driven by discovery. We’re not only thinking about solutions to problems, but doing something about them.
Our portfolio is testament to the success of this approach: we have over $4B AUD of constructed work and a further $3B AUD in planning or development. We work across diverse typologies – from multi-residential buildings and master plans, hospitality spaces and hotels, commercial offices, and interior architecture.
We’re animated by the desire to re-imagine and reconstruct environments worth inhabiting. We address the demands of our times by integrating wellness at all scales: materials, people, buildings, communities and cities. Drawing on the modernists who have always inspired us, we intervene at the point that nature and technology converge, harnessing both as tools to design architecture as a user interface.
Inspired by modernist clarity and driven by a responsibility to make architecture that performs, we create environments that are generous, logical, and alive—with people, plants, and animals.
We position ourselves by adding the extra to the ordinary—enhancing the familiar to create lasting impact. Hence the name, XO Projects.
Our approach fuses design excellence with strategic thinking to deliver high-performance urban products and solutions that are intelligent, resilient, and responsive to real-world challenges.
0.2a Adding that little extra to that ordinary
As a design and performance-led architectural practice, XO Projects delivers built environments that balance innovation, functionality, and aesthetics with purpose. We craft spaces that meet contemporary demands and anticipate future needs, shaping how people live, work, and connect.
Our expertise spans multi-residential typologies, mixed-used blocks, and community-centred development. Much like product design, each project is a considered response to its givens - carefully calibrated to unlock potential, elevate the user experience, and contribute meaningfully to the broader cityscape.
Rooted in long-term thinking, our work integrates systemic solutions for people and the planet. Sustainability, attainability, and durability are not afterthoughts - they are foundational to our design process and embedded in every decision we make.
XO Projects’ mission is away from imposing a singular agenda and instead to give form to the various habits of place, so the qualities that make each culture subtly distinct is made tangible and desirable with new buildings.
Our goal is to enable vision to collide with desire; business acumen with design capability.
We call our projects ‘total environments’ where ecology, technology and people converge. Where landscapes and species are regenerated in concert with the built form.
Architecture is a user experience, there are no borders between design, technology and community in our spaces.
This synthesis ensures that the places we create are desirable, deeply liveable, and rooted in local character - while confidently stepping into a globally connected future.
We believe good design is good business. It adds value, cultivates identity, and sets the foundation for evolution.
Premier Tower
The responsive approach to precinct regeneration sets a new bar for mixed-use developments. This building, sitting directly in front of Southern Cross station (the first thing people see when arriving) seeks to anchor the increased westerly shift of the CBD, heralded by the regeneration of Fishermen’s Bend and Southbank.
The twists and turns of this new project belie its pure and simple, first principles rationale, Occam himself would be proud. Premier Tower is the articulation of our research into how to work with individual sites and their climatic constraints, brought together using parametric modeling techniques. The complex form, a vertical cantilever – is actually the most effective way to redistribute the building’s mass, giving the best results in terms of structural dispersion, frequency oscillation and wind requirements.
For those more on the art than science side, we will reveal that the form does pay homage to something more aesthetic – we’re going to trust you’ve seen the music video for Beyoncé’s Ghost. As far as this project goes up, our focus also extends outwards – with retail space as well as hotel rooms and apartments, the project is designed with a more long-term view to urban design, creating a self-sustaining development.
Project cost
$351M AUD
Area 85,000 sqm
Typology Hotel, Multi Residential
Hotel keys 172
Operator Movenpick
Completion 2020
138 Spencer Street, Melbourne VIC
C6 Perth
At 189 metres, C6 will be the world’s tallest hybrid timber residential building. It will be constructed using 42% mass timber, the result of extensive research with timber and structural experts, along with green steel. The mass timber utilised in the building’s structure can be sustainably regrown in less than 1 hour, sequestering 10.5M kg of carbon.
The project will be carbon neutral at completion and will continue to remove carbon from the atmosphere through considered material selection, planting and energy efficient technology. The building features an embedded network, powering the building with 100% renewable energy, while the innovative elastic transport strategy will provide bike share and an EV car-share fleet of 80 Teslas.
C6 sits in concert with the site’s pre-settlement history; its connection to the local Indigenous peoples and native landscape. Fostering social capital, a 5000sqm podium and forecourt will be shared by residents and the wider community alike as 20% of the site area is given back as publicly accessible space. The landscape reconnects people and aids in re-habitation of the endangered Black Cockatoo.
An educational centre, playground, public art, tower-to-plate restaurant and urban farming will contribute to year-round amenity while invigorating the public realm.
6-8 Charles Street, Perth WA
Project cost
Area
$350M AUD
40,000 SQM
Typology Multi Residential
Completion 2027
Aurora Melbourne Central
Aurora Melbourne Central is a metropolis, an integrated mixed use precinct with an alluring and seductive yet technologically advanced form. The building has a rich fusion of Malay culture and Melbourne eccentricity, reflecting Melbourne’s position as a international South East Asian city. In this way we can create a metropolis that doesn’t have to be hard and gritty but an organic softness.
The hybrid form and plan of the tower draws from the hibiscus flower, a species constantly reproduced in Malaysia to create new, exciting colours and textures. In plan, the petals radiate out to the corners of the site, and the sculptural façade is three-dimensional, its textures merging into one another like the colours of the iconic flower. This project represents our new design direction – it was designed parametrically to optimise privacy, wind and sun-shading – the computational process enables us to design good apartments even better. The building is conveniently connected to Melbourne Central and the train network. To make the most of this subterranean link we have inserted a hawker market into the basement space. This food destination will not only help with pedestrian flows, but will be a welcome addition to the university precinct.
It’s not just Asia that’s represented here – we wanted to make this building a part of Melbourne as well, so we re-instated the laneway network through the site, inserting restaurants and shops between La Trobe and Little La Trobe Streets. We have also responded to criticism that residential CBD developments put strain on civic amenities by creating unparalleled communal space. Naturally we have the essentials – pool, gym, lounge and dining rooms – but we’ve also added in wine cellars, sky gardens, karaoke rooms and a golf room. This is a vertical city with the equivalent amenity. As the icing on the cake, the building also contributes to Melbourne’s tourism reputation, with 200 serviced apartments offering employment opportunities and increased economy.
250 La Trobe Street, Melbourne VIC
Project cost $350M AUD
Area 120,770 sqm
Typology Multi Residential
Completion 2019
380 Londsdale
Decidedly cosmopolitan, 380 Lonsdale Street seems to have everything that Melbourne needs. This project puts the mixed in mixed-use, taking cues from our client to bring a bit of Singapore-style precinct urban planning and a tropical twist to this prominent site in the CBD.
380 Lonsdale is actually two towers in one. One houses a hotel, the other apartments, and both are united by a low-level podium with eroded massing that contains separate pods for office space, a business club, dining and health facilities and retail. These floating pockets break up the volume of the podium with the functions themselves. On top sits a jungle-like communal garden for hotel and apartment residents, sending foliage cascading down the façade. This untamed, green space includes pocket parks and landscaped areas, a veritable urban oasis.
This isn’t just about the high life though: the building stays down to earth with lots of street level interaction, including an extension of Timothy Lane to create a new café and dining thoroughfare that cuts through the site, adding to Melbourne’s world-renowned laneway culture. This big picture planning means that the line is blurred between street, tower and laneway.
The forms of the towers appear as silver ripples emanating from the heart of the site. Moulded bay windows – a contemporary update for this classic device give the building’s surface a vertical rhythm, a waterfall that pours into the garden beneath.
380 Lonsdale is an urban intervention that brings a touch of the tropics to Melbourne – and ticks all the right boxes for the city in the process.
380 Londsdale St, Melbourne VIC
Project cost $300M AUD
Area 98,500 sqm
Typology Hotel, Multi Residential
Hotel keys 312
Operator VOCO
Completion 2020
Marina Mirage
Marina Mirage is set to be a world leading tourism and residential precinct that sets a new direction for regenerative design. Its living facades fuse architecture and landscape; a hybrid where buildings literally breathe.
This is a model community, deeply sustainable with zero carbon homes, hotel and restaurants set into the wondrous gardens of a littoral rainforest. Through a series of dramatic arrival experiences, Marina Mirage envelopes guests, residents and visitors alike. Arriving via Seaworld Drive reinforces the master planned vision for the Spit.
An extraordinary public realm expands out across the Broadwater. People not cars are prioritised in this urban context. The front door opens into a 3-storey internal rainforest while visually connecting guests to the marina beyond. Public spaces wrap the site as vaulted arches, forming a connecting navigation system that acts as intuitive and experience-driven wayfinding from front door to marina boardwalk.
Inspiration for the vaulted arches is derived from European waterfront cities; aqueduct architecture creating future-focused infrastructure. A series of graduated residences share the values of a progressive and dynamic new community where collectivism is celebrated. A new architecture evocative on the Byzantine era delivers material rich modernism while celebrating Australian design culture and craft.
74 Seaworld Drive, Main Beach, QLD
Project cost
$500M AUD
Area 54,000 sqm
Typology Resort, Mixed-use precinct
Hotel keys 110
Operator Confidential
Completion 2026
Aspire Melbourne
Aspire Melbourne responds directly to the presence of nearby Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne’s oldest park, by intertwining local stories to represent the origins and future of the precinct.
In the mid 19th century, this part of the city was Melbourne’s flourishing commercial centre: a diverse urban precinct home to the Indigenous Kulin nation, Chinese immigrants enticed by the Gold Rush as well as settler populations. This project embraces the distinctive elements of this site-specific identity, creating a thoroughly local architectural narrative.
Like the flagstaff erected on the site to communicate between the town and the port, King Street will anchor the West end’s renaissance, signaling its return as the beating heart of Melbourne.
The concave and convex glass facades reinterpret the fluttering of the flag against the flagstaff. The molded form appears as if volumes have been carved out of the, slender tower. The undulating curves of the podium echo the rolling hills of the highest point of the city, while the park has become part of the building itself, with heavy planting creating green bands of foliage across the lower surface.
Transcending time and space, the past present and future of this significant site come together, re-establishing Melbourne’s West end as the beating heart of the city.
295 King Street, Melbourne VIC
Project cost
$400M AUD
Area 50,000 sqm
Typology
Multi Residential
Completion 2023
Mondrian Gold Coast
Studio 54. That’s all you need on your CV as a hotelier. Ian Schrager took everything he learnt from catering to the world’s jet-set at his legendary 70s New York nightclub and distilled it into his iconic Mondrian hotel brand. Schrager pioneered the “boutique hotel,” creating a whole lot more than just somewhere to bed down for the night. His hotels offer transformative lifestyle experiences and ooze style and opulence. But they also manage to make you feel right at home.
So our brief was simple: to design a building that befits a legend, while capturing all the things that make this precious stretch of the Gold Coast so unique. We saw an opportunity to find a new way of thinking about Australian coastal architecture, in this instance, “bare-foot luxury.”
A place as special as Burleigh Heads cries out for an architectural response that forges an intimate connection between the transcendent natural surroundings and the built environment. The undulating profile of the two towers we’ve designed reflects the voluptuous lines of the sparkling sand dunes and imposing headland, while archways soaring above vast rooms and arcades at ground level echo the ancient caves that honeycomb the coastline.
So in the Mondrian Gold Coast, we’ve made the transitions between inside and outside seamless. To be standing within this space in dappled shade cast by architectural forms overhead, watching the waves crash on white sand below is to be immersed in this pristine environment.
50 The Esplanade, Burleigh Heads QLD
Project cost
$380M AUD
Area 65,000 SQM
Typology
Hotel keys
Resort, Multi Residential
200
Operator Mondrian
Completion 2025
Central Island T7-10
The man-made peninsula of the three exclusive residential towers is fully pedestrianised and porously sloped landscape towards the Luxelakes waterfronts.
The ground floors, with the exception of the entrance lobbies, are deliberately porous and allow the residents to cross-connect with the water boundaries effortlessly. The quartet of towers represents a harmonious sanctuary designed to create a sense of serenity and community. Secluded courtyards provide a welcoming arrival point, while greenery and various amenities enhance the feeling of exclusivity within the community. All carparks are discretely driven to the basements of the artificial island.
The towers feature sculpted terraces that extend the internal living spaces into the outdoors, offering expansive views over the water and surrounding recreational areas. Bedrooms and dining areas connect directly with the terraces.
The protruded terraces of the apartments above float graciously and spaciously; they are designed seamlessly as private platforms for recreation, entertainment and related living rituals. Comfortable in size, performance, and viewing amenities, three- and four-bedroom apartments are designed to meet the highest residential paragons. They are filled with quality
The full completion of the Central Island T7-T10 project is scheduled for 2027.
China
Area 28,800 SQM
Typology Multi Residential
Apartments: 108
Developer: Chengdu Wide Horizon Group
Completion 2027
Luxelakes C7-P2, Central Island T7-10, Chengdu,
Meisha Terraces
Xiaomeisha, the “Oriental Hawaii”, is reimagined as a bold, future-facing coastal destination.
This masterplanned mixed-use precinct capitalizes on its extraordinary natural setting—golden coastline to the front, green mountains behind—to deliver a powerful integration of urban life, leisure, and landscape.
The design asserts a true coastal urbanism. Retail and commercial zones embrace the beach, activated by open-air F&B circulation and extended through lush sunken gardens directly linked to metro access and beach-front underpasses. This is not just a shopping experience—it’s a continuous coastal journey.
Office towers are precisely oriented, single-loaded to secure unobstructed ocean views, while podium rooftops transform into dynamic social landscapes with pools, parks, and event terraces.
The luxury hotel tower stands apart as a sculptural icon, crowned with an infinity pool and shaped for maximum panoramic exposure. Every corner suite features a private balcony pool, cementing its high-end status.
The precinct is fully pedestrianised. Vehicles are removed from the ground plane entirely, replaced by a multi-level public realm connected through dramatic open atriums and a landmark pedestrian bridge. A central green avenue drives cross-site activation, naturally ventilated through strategic chimney effects. It is not just a link—it is a destination in its own right.
Xiaomeisha, Mirs Bay, China
Area
Typology
Status
165,388 SQM
Retail, Office, Hotel
2030 Masterplanning
Duo C30
The 30 Twin Towers are the landmarking, tallest structures within the Luxelakes C30 multi-residential, luxury development, located 20 kilometres south of central Chengdu.
Set on reclaimed and ecologically regenerative land, the towers rise along the banks of expansive man-made lakes. The design draws inspiration from the rhythmic swell of water, abstracted into vertical undulations that define the towers’ striking form. This gesture not only establishes a strong architectural identity but also maximizes solar access and panoramic water views for each residence.
Apartments are configured with only three large units per floor: one four-bedroom and two three-bedroom residences. The towers’ terraces gently rotate around a central axis as they ascend, optimizing outlooks and privacy by orienting away from surrounding mid-rise blocks. These expansive outdoor spaces transition into enclosed terraces near the tower crowns, further enhancing spatial variation and comfort.
A sculptural interplay of curved balcony lines and shifting volumes reinforces the design’s connection to its lakeside setting while offering residents a deeply immersive, sensorial living experience.
Awarded: Golden Titan Award, 2022. Scheduled for completion in 2026.
C30 Luxelakes, Chengdu South, China: Under Construction Area
Typology
72,000 SQM
Multi Residential
Apartments 88
Developer Chengdu Wide Horizon Group
Completion 2026
The Axis - Urban vision for Shenzhen East
The masterplan scheme for the Xinxiu District reimagines a 1960s urban fabric into a new model for bio-urbanity, merging dense city living with regenerative natural systems.
Developed in partnership with Rockefeller Group, the project pioneers low-carbon urbanism at the edge of Shenzhen, a city leading China’s green transition.
Anchored along Shennan Road, the plan activates public parks as communal living rooms and transforms the Shawan River into a vibrant ecological destination. An efficient, flexible grid triples the green and built-up areas, enabling sustainable intensification.
At the heart lies a central island, defined by the Yanhe River and an underground water corridor. This island—crowned with twin landmark towers—is envisioned as a “cloud city” of business, culture, and creativity. East and west residential wings are designed with porous clusters, allowing native greenery to flow between hills, riverfront, schools, and public buildings.
A network of green and blue infrastructure, including pedestrian bridges and rooftop gardens, stitches the district into a cohesive ecological system. The grid is tailored to the site, optimizing movement, land subdivision, and environmental resilience. This is urbanism where architecture serves life—a symbiotic blueprint for human-nature coexistence.
Hong Kong - Shenzhen East border, Rockefeller HQ, China
Area
105 Hectares
Typology Regenerative Urbanism
Hotel keys
200
Developer: Rockefeller Group & REC RE
W2 Commercial
The W2 Commercial Promenade is a porous retail spine that dissolves boundaries between nature and city, drawing the green park inward and threading it through a dynamic mix of retail, hospitality, and residences.
The invasive greenery invites into an entirely new sensorial urban experience. The trust of Chengdu Wide Horizon Investment Group is rewarding everyone involved.
A dozen multi-residential towers, varying from 16 to 21 storeys, are communally distributed around the green courtyards, covering underground parking over the W2 residential site. The eastern edge of the tower podiums forms the quieter half of the newly established pedestrian shopping street — the other half (W2 - Commercial) rises to four storeys, including the retail headquarters, shops and restaurants.
A lively W2 promenade softly dissolves the commercial and residential building fabrics. It is an absorbent pedestrian connector, combining retail hospitality, business and residences. Offering the crossing passages from the western green park to the eastern residential park, it is designed as an informal meeting space for various demographics.
The design system of the W2 commercial buildings (4-6 storeys) seeks a highly structured urban fabric containing a linear ground floor, topped with the playful protruded and recessed volumes above. The ground floor fully opens to the squares and plazas along the promenade and activates the daily routines of the visitors and residents across.
Under construction, schedule for completion in 2027.
W2 Commercial, Luxelakes, Chengdu, China
Area
25,000 SQM
Typology Commercial, Retail
Developer: Chengdu Wide Horizon Group
Completion 2027
Igor Kebel
Founder, XO Projects
Igor Kebel, Founder and Principal of XO Projects, is recognised for delivering innovative, systemic design solutions to real-life challenges. His cross-disciplinary approach merges strategic thinking with a growing command of future-proofed design, technology, and economic performance.
He leads XO Projects, a Melbourne-based studio with a rapidly expanding portfolio across Australia, Europe, and Asia. With over two decades of experience in residential, commercial, and civic architecture, Igor brings a deep understanding of design, delivery, and market context. He began his career at UNStudio in the Netherlands and, in 2003, co-founded Elastik, known for delivering Bellevue Hotel and Thermana. As Design Director and Partner at Fraser & Partners from 2013, he supervised key Melbourne towers, including EQ Tower, Aurora Melbourne Central, and Victoria One.
Since founding XO Projects in 2016, Igor has focused on design that integrates contextual intelligence with future-proofing and attainability. His work is known for its design efficiency, parametric sustainability, and alignment of architectural vision with client and urban value. The pivotal work includes 400 City Road in Melbourne, 88 Ferny Avenue in Gold Coast, Twin Gardens in Jakarta, and the new city block W2 in Chengdu.
Callum Fraser Founder, Fraser & Partners
Since founding the practice 1998, Callum is now recognised as one of Australia’s leading architects – known for his singular ability to combine high-level design with commercially viable outcomes. His design direction has both a playful intellect and deep-seated cultural appreciation.
Overseeing the design platform across Fraser & Partners, Callum ensures projects meet the practices design and research ambitions while undertaking commercial planning, and achieving high-resolution outcomes. Callum has previously been a councillor for the Heritage Council of Victoria and a chapter councillor with the Australian Institute of Architects.
He has a personal interest in fusing the aesthetics of architecture with research into passive building technologies. Consequently, the practice has spearheaded the architectural application of wind technologies that enable significant energy reductions and increased comfort for building occupants through design.
Reade Dixon Director, Fraser & Partners
If you’re looking for a stereotypical architect, clad in a black turtleneck and glasses, you won’t find him here. Reade breaks the mould, with his ability to diffuse situations with a quick joke and frank explanations of difficult concepts.
Growing up on acreage property he was exposed to a completely different set of priorities to those of the urban apartment projects he has worked on at Fraser & Partners. This enables him to approach projects from a unique perspective and a certain calm confidence. His leadership is built on the foundatios of a market-calibrated perspective married with culturally attuned insight.
This distinctive design lens has enabled Reade to spearhead some of Australia’s most distinctive architectural projects including Melbourne’s iconic Premier Tower (colloquially the ‘Beyonce Building’), C6, the worlds tallest timber hybrid tower - and Elysium Fields, a 22,000sqm, five tower site tipped to rejuvinate the dormant Docklands Precinct.
He has a strong social conscience and philosophically aspires to re-establish the architect’s ancient role in not only shaping the built environment, but influencing politics, community and social order.
Lucas Menegazzo
Associate Director, Fraser & Partners
Lucas’ background across architecture, property and construction sees him combine a passion for commercially sound outcomes with innovative conceptual design. He has a fascination for the intangible aspects of design and the impacts architecture can have by evoking a sense of the unknown.
Able to empathise with the end user while articulating client expectations, Lucas heads up the practice’s national New Business team, while leading projects across multiple typologies.
He works alongside clients and design teams to achieve the best outcomes, with his approachability and communication style, strategic mindset and problem-solving skills transcending any challenges that may arise.
Always looking to bring fresh ideas and alternative perspectives, Lucas is continuously inspired by international and local innovation and seeks every opportunity to travel and soak up as much global knowledge as possible.
Enquiries
Lucas Menegazzo l.menegazzo@fraserandpartners.com.au
