With a fun and energetic touch-down for the “young at heart” and professional traveller the 301-key lifestyle hotel is making its mark at Sydney Airport with a dynamic alternative to the typical hotel experience. GroupGSA was engaged by Sydney-based construction company Roberts Co (previously Roberts Pizzarotti) to lead the architecture, executive interior design, landscaping, graphics and wayfinding for the $140 million development. The project was first initiated in 2018 when Marriott partnered with RF Corval and KS Hotels & Resorts to launch the first Moxy Hotel in Sydney. Topping 13-storeys on Baxter Rd at Mascot, Moxy Sydney Airport is located on a former cark park site, directly alongside from the domestic and international terminals.
Designed around maximising connection to place and servicing the “urban nomad” and “innovative professional”, the hotel development focuses on strong design carried out cohesively to the smallest details. Links to the history of Mascot and contextual reflections underpin this unique hotel.
Moxy Sydney Airport is so strongly different in its façade than anything done before it. It marks a new wave in lifestyle hotels in Australia of consolidated hotel footprints with highly designed and well-equipped amenities, designed explicitly for a younger and professional clientele.
The hotel’s interior and exterior finishes speak explicitly to Sydney, fusing the iconic Moxy brand DNA with the granularity and history of the Botany area. Rooms are compact, highly resolved, and encourage guests to engage in the social spaces.
There’s a striking contrast between the compact, private rooms and buzzy social spaces, which operate day-to-night. It’s smart, stylish and fun with very different materiality you’d expect to find at a typical airport hotel.
Check-in is at the bar, where guests collect their room key and complimentary signature cocktail on arrival. There’s a vibrancy in the key cohort they’re anticipating.
Artist Elliott Routledge, who goes by the street name ‘Numskull’, was commissioned by the architects to develop a large totem-style sculpture and two major public artworks. This includes a kaleidoscope deep blue and white pattern wrap to the façade, which makes a strong playful expression and urban statement – and one that drives the overall personality of the hotel.
Inside, the landscape seeps into the foyer space, blurring the edge between internal and external. There’s a very deliberate, heavy greening to the communal areas, which are flooded with natural light. Moxy’s bold and playful attitude is met by edgy, industrial-chic social spaces, which include 24/7 dining options, a gym and flexible co-working and meeting breakouts.
A coffee outlet with an operable ‘garage’ style glass door opens out onto the street, offering cool warehouse vibes.
The hotel has won for:
1. New-Build Hotel of the Year, and
2. 2024 Paul Davis Award for the Australasia-Pacific Hotel of the Year.
The judges said:
“The design team… have created a hotel which is activated and dynamic – a unique accomplishment in an airport precinct. They have provided a welcoming and comfortable environment where every touch point across the common areas and guest rooms have been carefully considered.
It balances playfulness and nostalgia perfectly to create a design outcome that shows that limited service does not equal limited design. The design team, along with the client have delivered a passion project, filled with character and soul. It is an exemplary lifestyle hotel in Australia.”
Lisa-Maree, a Director and multi-award-winning architect, is a design and thought leader with a global perspective. Her extensive industry knowledge from working in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Australia underpins her purposeful, visionary design excellence.
