Tajon Luxury Offices × PIXIE
Lighting control that defers to a heritage building
High above Martin Place, inside the former headquarters of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney, Tajon has created Australia's first Private Workplace Residence. PWR Electrics entrusted PIXIE with dynamic control of the entire lighting controls package across the first two completed floors, with nothing visible to compete with the sandstone, marble and bronze.
Key Takeouts
Complement, never compete
In a building of this standing the control system has to disappear. PIXIE works behind standard wall plates, inside ceiling coves and within the sensors themselves, so the architecture and the interiors carry the room while the technology stays out of sight.
No schedules, the building decides
There is no office-style timetable at Tajon. More than 50 PIXIE sensors across both floors tell the system where people are, and PIXIE logic decides when the facility moves between normal operation, after-hours mode and cleaning mode.
Standardised so it stays simple
PWR Electrics and Tajon agreed one repeatable way for downlights, cove LED strip and pendants to dim and switch in every suite. Operation is predictable for tenants, and maintenance is simple for the Tajon team.
The Project
343 George Street was built between 1921 and 1925 as the headquarters of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. Designed by Kent and Massie in the Inter-War Commercial Palazzo style and listed on the NSW State Heritage Register in 1999, it was commissioned to express permanence and authority, and a century on the sandstone and granite facade, the marble banking chamber, the timber joinery and the bronze detailing still do exactly that.
Tajon Luxury Offices, led by CEO and Creative Director Natashia Steed, has taken the upper floors and created something Sydney has not seen before: private, self-contained workplace residences in place of open-plan coworking. Each suite has its own office, boardroom, meeting room, bar and lounge. Tenants share a members lounge with a full-service bar and temperature-controlled wine vault, a rooftop garden and terrace, and end-of-trip facilities, all finished to a six-star standard.
The lighting had to live up to the building. Working with PWR Electrics, Tajon entrusted PIXIE with the entire lighting controls package across the two floors completed so far.
Lighting worthy of the building, without a building management system
The brief had three parts, and they pull in different directions.
The first was aesthetic. Pendants, LED cove lighting for indirect light, LED downlights and wall lights run through the suites, private meeting rooms, boardrooms, corridors and the main bar, and all of it needed to be dimmable and discreet.
The second was operational. This is a premium workplace where tenants and their guests come and go at unpredictable hours, where lighting must always be there when someone walks in, and where the main bar needs to move from workplace to funplace in an instant.
The third was practical. The Tajon team needed a system that was simple to run, repeatable from suite to suite and easy to maintain without specialist support on call.
A conventional commercial answer would be a building management system with dedicated control cabling and a programming budget to match. In a heritage building every additional cable run is a complication. PIXIE's Bluetooth mesh runs on standard Australian wiring, which meant PWR Electrics could deliver the whole control architecture without pulling data cabling through heritage fabric.
One repeatable lighting design across every suite
Considerable thought went into how lighting should behave in the common areas compared with the private suites and boardrooms. Simplicity won.
PWR Electrics and Tajon standardised how each lighting type is handled: PIXIE Smart Switches for the pendants and for the cove LED strip that provides indirect light in suites, meeting rooms and boardrooms; PIXIE Smart Dimmers for the LED downlights; and PIXIE LED Strip Controllers for the dimmable strip through the corridors, coves and the main bar.
Because the approach is identical in every suite, a tenant moving from one suite to another finds the lighting behaves exactly as they expect, and anyone from the Tajon team working on one suite already knows how every other suite is wired and configured.
Workplace to funplace with one scene change
In the common areas, dimmable LED strip sets the mood through the corridors and coves.
The main bar combines LED strip, pendants and wall lights with exceptional soft furnishings and finishes, and a single scene change takes it from daytime workplace to evening venue.
Every one of those loads sits on the same PIXIE mesh as the suites, so the scene that transforms the bar is set from the same app and the same Touch Panels the Tajon team use for everything else.
A constellation of sensors doing two jobs
More than 50 PIXIE 360-degree PIR sensors are deployed throughout both floors. Inside the suites they provide energy management, so lighting is never left running in an empty office. In the main circulation and public areas they behave dynamically according to the time of day, which means the same corridor responds differently at nine in the morning and nine at night.
Electrically, PIXIE sensors need no switch wire. That gave PWR Electrics freedom in placement and faster wiring, because each sensor can be set up over the mesh to control any single lighting load or any combination of loads, and can also trigger further events through PIXIE's conditional logic.
No schedules, the building decides
In a typical office you would expect a fixed timetable: lights on at seven, off at seven, exceptions handled by whoever has the password. Tajon has none of that.
PIXIE programs continuously review the status of more than 50 sensors across both floors, determine when motion was last detected in each area, and decide when the facility can shift from normal operation into after-hours mode or cleaning mode.
The after-hours selection is dynamic, which matters in a building where people move in and out at unpredictable times. The logic minimises false triggers, so occupants are never left in the dark or interrupted by a lighting change they did not ask for, and it still captures the energy savings whenever spaces are empty.
"There are no schedules here. The building reads its own occupancy and decides."
A network that built itself
Two large commercial floor plates would normally call for dedicated mesh boosters. At Tajon none were needed.
The PIXIE Universal LED Strip Controllers (LT8915RTW/BTAM) fitted through the corridors for smooth, deep dimming of the cove strip also work as mesh boosters, and the density of sensors in both the suites and the public areas added further nodes.
Together they produced a wireless mesh that has proven rock solid across both floors, and one that tenants have come to depend on.
Control for the team, control for the tenants
Three PIXIE Ambience Touch Panels across the two floors give clients PIN-code access to fine-tune lighting for special events and to apply overrides when they need them.
Because PIXIE Touch Panels and Gateways communicate over the building's IP network as well as the Bluetooth mesh, a panel on one floor can control lighting on the other, so the three panels operate the whole facility rather than their own floor alone.
For the Tajon team, the PIXIE PLUS App provides a simple interface for fast changes as occupancies shift and tenants make requests. With a PIXIE Gateway on each floor, those changes can be made remotely, so a tenant request does not have to wait for someone to be on site.
Technology that defers to the architecture
The strongest compliment a control system can receive in a building like 343 George Street is that nobody notices it.
Tenants see sandstone, marble, bronze and beautifully lit rooms. The PIXIE mesh, the sensors and the logic do their work behind the finishes.
For PWR Electrics, the project shows that a sophisticated, occupancy-driven commercial lighting system can be delivered on standard wiring, without a building management system, and remain simple enough for the operator's own team to run day to day.
"PIXIE complements the building rather than competing with it. The lighting responds to the people in the room, and the technology stays invisible."
The building sets the standard. PIXIE keeps up with it.
What Was Installed
Tajon Luxury Offices
Our thanks to Natashia Steed and the Tajon team for opening the doors to 343 George Street. Tajon's Private Workplace Residences are now open for leasing, with private suites for teams of one to eleven or more, a members lounge and bar, a rooftop terrace and end-of-trip facilities, all inside one of Sydney's finest heritage buildings.
Planning a commercial fit-out?
PIXIE Smart Spaces delivers occupancy-driven lighting, climate and scene control on standard wiring, without a building management system. Talk to a PIXIE Partner about your project.