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A small lot subdivision, 3 Houses Marrickville
is an exemplar of low-impact urban
consolidation.
From a single Federation-era house, the
subdivision has created three individual
dwellings: a pair of two-storey semis, and
one single-storey freestanding house that
fits seamlessly into its context of workers’
cottages.
The project is a confident and sympathetic
response to the heritage values of the site
and surrounds. Thoughtful design and control
of detail has addressed the varied scales
and rhythms of adjacent buildings to create
something idiosyncratic, yet harmonious
with the street. The semis utilise as much of
the existing Federation house as possible
to minimise material usage and waste, and
recombine its keystone brick and stucco
render with a new deep cut, hinting at the
intervention, while blurring its lines.
The detached dwelling is a study in natural
timber with distinctly beautiful overtones of
Finnish and Japanese design. Arranged round
a central courtyard, the elevation required
for 100-year flood events lends the building
a subtropical informality, reinforced by the
inventive interior planning and details.
Photo:Brett Boardman
RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE - MULTIPLE HOUSING
ARCHITECTURE AWARD
3 Houses Marrickville
David Boyle Architect
Bourke Street Woolloomooloo provides an
innovative solution to a vexing problem in
large cities where sensitive developments
adjoin very busy roads - how to create
apartments of high amenity and high
density with natural light and ventilation that
acoustically shield occupants.
Flanking Sydney’s Eastern Distributor, which
carries more than 20 million cars annually,
the building takes a highly visible defensive
approach with a bold tri-colour noise wall of
high quality vitrified panels. This acoustically
protective frontage is activated by the
apartment kitchens and studies through
triple-glazed slot windows looking across
to The Domain. The quiet interior courtyard
and open-air access gallery between the
neighbouring terraces and apartments allows
sunlight and air into all dwellings, and over
time, with the landscape strategy realised, this
communal spine will transform into a layered
green space.
The project integrates into a mixed context at
Bourke Street by incorporating the facade of a
1920s workshop as commercial space. Within
this very challenging context, the planning
has delivered high amenity, quiet apartments
within a robust off-form concrete frame to
ensure the building’s longevity.
Photo:Brett Boardman
Bourke St Woolloomooloo
McGregor Westlake Architecture
Dunstan Grove apartments is a thoughtful
response to the neighbouring celebrated
brutalist UTS Kuring-gai campus and its
bushland setting.
Its pair of buildings follow the site contours,
presenting a sculptural frontage to the
adjacent Lane Cove National Park through
a confidently composed facade of precast
concrete in horizontal bands and vertical,
slatted steel sunscreens. The screens
generate variation across the facade when
opened or closed by residents, while the raw
concrete becomes a canvas for shadows cast
through the dappled light of the adjacent
forest canopy. Between the two buildings, a
bushland court garden provides an active and
sociable hub to the complex.
Internally, apartments are planned for high
amenity, with living spaces pushed out
towards the facades, bathing them in sunlight.
Similarly, bedrooms are naturally lit, and given
privacy by adjacent balconies.
Its robust construction and artful precast
concrete make this project a skilful addition to
an important architectural precinct.
Photo: Brett Boardman
Dunstan Grove
Architectus
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