fitzroy apartments

8. FITZROY APARTMENTS

This part of Fitzroy is a mixture of small-scale terrace housing and larger light industrial buildings which have been used by carmechanics, panel-beaters, spray painters and the like.

Our client was a metalworker who previously manufactured mufflers in a factory on this site. His brief was for seven apartments, with double-garages for each, making the most of good views to the city skyline. He pointed out to us that the 18 metre width of the site perfectly matches a standard carparking layout.

Considering the various possibilities for providing access, light and air to seven dwellings, we arrived at an arrangement which divided the seven units into two buildings: one containing three apartments facing the street, the other containing four apartments facing the lane. A courtyard between them provides light, air, privacy and views in many directions.

Looking at local and historical building patterns for this size and type of site, this way of building matches the typical surrounding configuration of street buildings, which span boundary-to-boundary, and then various rear yard or laneway buildings, which are often more shed-like, irregular and three-dimensional in nature.

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TWO BUILDINGS

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The two buildings are joined together by a ground floor arcadelobby. Cars enter and exit from the lane, and pedestrians can enter from either end.

The council requires two carspaces for apartments of this size, but you certainly don’t need them living in Fitzroy. The glazed doors allow garages to potentially be used for other things: they could become workshops, play spaces or even small shops or studios. We started researching arcades in the city.

We also didn’t just want to ‘suppress’ the idea of the garage, which is often the case in residential developments of this type. We wanted to include the idea that the carpark is important, because if you travel by car you would enter into the building through that space every day.

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ARCADE

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Entering all the apartments through the arcade means that it is hard to tell whether an entrance belongs to a dwelling in the front building or the back building. All entrances are the same, confusing the hierarchy between the two parts and unifying the complex into a single entity.

Cars and people are not separated, they share the same space.

Cars drive slowly over unusual surfaces. Like the mid-block shopping arcades, or laneways, where through-circulation is shared intimately with display and access to shops/ dwellings above.

The arcade is an ambiguous space, open and transparent but also private; semi-external, but also an interior. It gives something back to the street and gives a type of semi-public scale to the building.

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SHARED SPACE

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The space between the two buildings is not ‘common area’ but is subdivided into small private yards which are accessible from first-floor bedrooms. Above this occupied level, the shape of the open space allows sideways views across rooftops of adjacent buildings, and allows the rear apartments to share northerly light and the feeling of the large deciduous street trees.

Each apartment has a different combination of open spaces.

Elevated terraces face north and also south to the city, allowing for cross-ventilation and views through. The configuration of the rear building allows the front apartments to look towards the city beyond without directly affecting the dwellings behind.

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COURTYARDS

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2F

GF

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3F

1F

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Various metalwork surfaces and parts have been engineered together with the client to achieve a certain lightness and efficiency. All ornament is also structural, with pressings, folds and pleats allowing the metal to achieve a tight and delicate quality.

The repetitive street facade is detailed so as to disguise internal divisions and emphasise the building as an urban block. Street and laneway frontages are cut flat and subdued in colour. Internal surfaces and side walls, however, are bright and ornamental, reflecting light into the courtyards and exposing the insides of the building to the street.

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SURFACE TENSION

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Fitzroy Apartments NMBW Architecture Studio 2003 - 2010 Project Team Nigel Bertram Lucinda McLean Marika Neustupny with: Laura Harper Rowena Henry Ralf Rehak Brenton Weisert First published Architecture Australia Vol. 99 No.4 July/ August 2010 pp.82-89 review: Simon Anderson Photography Peter Bennetts

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