High Street Apartments
CLT Multi-residential / Thornbury
Photographer: Rory Gardiner
Videographer: Alex Troup
Stylist: Jess Kneebone
The High Street Apartments is Gardiner Architects’ first high-rise multi-residential project. Located in Thornbury, Melbourne, the project is a mixed-use building, with thirteen apartments above a ground floor carpark and restaurant fronting High Street.
It is interesting to question what role a building has in forming community and the extent of its capacity to do so. The idea here was to essentially make the project a collection of stacked homes, each with its own sense of presence, unique layout and design that responds to its particular outlook and orientation. We wanted to give each apartment a sense of address, with the idea that you are entering your house rather than a long corridor with repetitive doorways all facing each other. The entry points to each apartment are different and have their own presence.
A mix of materials with varying textures were used to bring warmth to the shared foyer and corridors.
A fundamental part of the design was to have a single central, open stairwell wrapping around the lift with good amenity to make it more attractive to use. The south stair façade is built with glass bricks so that gentle natural light can wash into the space.
Soft light washes down the central stairwell through the south facing glass brick facade.
The unrepeated floor plans generate an irregular façade that breaks up the scale of the building and provides definition. The articulation of the form comes from the recessed balconies and the varied pattern of the windows – there was no need to apply decorative elements or a plethora of materials to break up the mass.
A close up of the facade that is broken up by the irregular window forms and set in balconies.
The balconies are sculpted out of the building and then clad wall to ceiling in a contrasting terracotta tile. From the street you get a simple mix but some diversity in the palette. Even though it’s a big building, it fits into the urban context well.
Materials and tones have been picked up from the various buildings that run along High Street.
Differing from your usual apartment development model, there was an imperative for our client to create something sustainable, robust and well-designed for the longer-term. With longevity in mind, materials were used in their natural form, rather than applying a surface treatment that might chip and wear poorly over time.
A living room opening up to a large deck area. The living space incorporates a paired back palette and provides plenty of inbuilt, recessed storage.
The client was really supportive of creating apartment interiors that used some colour and texture. Inside the apartments the palette is warm with splashes of colour, while still restrained enough to allow future residents to add their own style to the spaces, which is always important in speculative projects where you don’t know the end user. Our aim was to create well-designed, timeless interiors that aren’t just responding to a recent trend that would date quickly. With long-term occupation in mind, opportunities for storage are maximised so that growing families can expand within the space.
A typical mix of colour and tones in an apartment with views south to the city beyond.
The building employs prefabricated cross-laminated timber (CLT) construction to achieve a more sustainable outcome, with the apartments achieving an 8.4-star rating on average. This building methodology allowed for greater flexibility of layout, with each level and apartment a completely individual design responding to the varied orientation, size and aspect of each apartment.
A large sliding door connects the indoor and outdoor spaces in a north facing apartment.
Timber is carbon neutral and generally has very good environmental credentials. Notably, replacing one cubic metre of concrete with timber, saves 1 tonne of carbon. The system developed saw a great reduction in the buildings carbon footprint as well as increased thermal performance. The prefabrication methodology also allowed for a lot less waste as the engineered timber elements are all cut accurately to size in the factory.
A prefabricated CLT panel being installed on site.
Timber buildings are healthier buildings. The nature of prefabrication and assembly, means the building envelope is incredibly airtight. This vastly improves thermal and acoustic performance compared with typical construction methods, which tend to have lots of gaps between structural elements. When this is combined with an effective air exchange system, a timber building can maintain a constant fresh air supply, without leaks, which is healthier for occupants.
The prefabricated stair carefully being lowered into position.
Gardiner Architects recognise the need to be able to accommodate growing urban populations but are optimistic that new building systems could see a reduction in carbon emissions and a move towards healthier buildings. We hope to have the opportunity to build more with CLT in the future.
To read more about the construction process of the High Street Apartments project, you can take a look at our blog page.