Two family-sized townhouses in North Melbourne. The brick and steel facade references both the industrial and Victorian/Edwardian residential heritage of the North Melbourne area.
Four large townhouses in a formerly industrial street of North Melbourne. Brick columns in a classical rhythm dominate the façades and provide privacy and shading. Access to natural light is provided throughout each residence via extensive fenestration, lightwells, clerestory windows, and roof terraces.
The Mighty Apollo Apartments were designed to meet the demands for affordable inner city housing within the city fringe. The five-level building contains 27 dwellings, including studio apartments, 2 bedroom apartments and rooftop penthouse apartments, all with basement carparking and storage.
Construction cost was minimized through the use of simple precast concrete panels and perforated metal screening. Each apartment is separately denoted through the use of coloured soffits and balcony walls. The colour palette was inspired by the colours of a sunburst; Apollo being the god of light.
This multi-residential development of 35 two-bedroom apartments provides an alternative to the dominant single dwelling housing stock of the area. The building is adjacent to a new wetlands park and close to the town centre of the rapidly growing suburb of Caroline Springs.
The structure is a horizontal combination of masonry, timber and lightweight construction. The design is layered: at ground level a solid masonry base, broken up with screens and planing, at level one a rendered layer with light colouring and extruded balconies, and at level two a more natural timber layer which lightens the top of the building and sets back to reduce the impact of the third level. This gives an overall visual impression of a building of 2 levels rather than 3.
Photography credit: Jack Lovell Photography
This multi-residential development of 101 units, 15 three bedroom units and 86 two bedroom units, provides a new alternative to the housing stock of the area, currently predominantly free-standing houses and town houses. The development will contain a café for public use at ground level, facing the adjacent lake and parkland.
The neighbourhood context has been carefully considered within design development. Vertical lines, articulated as deep setbacks into the south and north façades, create a design that reads as a set of townhouse-type dwellings rather than a single building. The design also employs a range of materials and colours to highlight separate components of the building and provide variety, visual interest and coherence to the façade.
We were commissioned to design a 74 apartment complex in the Lend Lease Communities Estate at Laurimar, North of Melbourne, adjacent to wetlands walking track and lake. The project consists of a mix of two and three bedroom apartments stepping from 3 to 5 levels with penthouses on the roof and an underground carpark.
Careful attention was paid to the way in which the development would integrate into the neighbourhood and landscape context. Articulating the development as four separate buildings; stepping up in height rather than as a single mass presents it as pedestrian-friendly and permits views between the buildings and into the green spaces from the street/ parkscape. The intention was to create an impression of modulated, integrated form rather than monolithic mass. At ground level the street edge is broken down by the irregular rythm of planting, masonry, steel and glass.
Each apartment has been designed to have access to a substantial balcony or terraced private open space. The design also incorporates a large communal central garden that was conceptualised as a 'village' amenity; encouraging community engagement among the development's residents as well as enhancing the livability of the site as low-maintenance accommodation option.
Our Bell Street mixed-use development is currently being assessed by the City of Darebin.
