Q1 (building)
skyscraper in Australia
Q1 Tower (an abbreviation of Queensland Number One) is a 322.5-metre (1,058 ft) supertall skyscraper on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The residential tower on the Gold Coast was the world's tallest residential building from 2005 to 2011. It is the tallest building in Australia, the second tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, behind the Autograph Tower in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the third-tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere, behind the Autograph Tower in Jakarta and the Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand. The Q1 officially opened in November 2005.
The landmark building was recognised as one of Queensland's icons during the state's 150th-birthday celebrations.
Design and construction
Q1 Tower was designed by SDG & The Buchan Group, and its form was inspired by the Sydney 2000 Olympic torch and the Sydney Opera House. The name was given in honour of members of Australia’s Olympic sculling team of the 1920s – Q1.
The concept was based on studies of wind, movement and tension, in which a series of ribbons wrap concentrically around the tower’s exterior and hover above the entry plaza area, providing cover and shade. The tension in the movement and free form are expressed by the gradual twisting of the aluminium-clad ribbons as they move around the building. The result is an open-air galleria-like shopping precinct under the glazed ribbon structure and a curved retail façade to the street edges.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q125846. Authority coordinates are -28.006, 153.429. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2005, 2011 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Q1 (building)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.