The ‘Apartments in the Park’ concept delivers 120 apartments across six medium rise buildings in a car-free parkland setting.
The Parkland
The first principle behind the overall concept is the provision of apartments in a park. To achieve this, all vehicular movement and car parking has been taken underground to give the entire site over to safe pedestrian movement in a quiet, landscaped, vehicle free environment.
The central focus of the formal landscaping is immediately adjacent to the community centre. This area provides a central meeting area and can also be used as breakout space from the dining room.
The majority of this central parkland area is over deep ground making it suitable for major trees.
The garden areas to the western side of the park are given over to a flower garden, vegetable garden and a grassed area with a gazebo which doubles as a music shell.
Small, residential garden size gazebos are located between each apartment building to facilitate meeting outdoors. Children’s’ play facilities are located close to each of these gazebos in full view of the adjacent apartments. A larger communal children’s play area can be located on the western side of the park.
Landscaping selections will ensure pathways remain under passive surveillance from adjacent buildings.
Style
Gently curved external wall and balcony elements have been introduced to soften the buildings against the parkland and the sky.
Stylistically the apartments have been developed with an eye on producing crisp, sensible, efficient floor plan and volumetric arrangements that are capable of embracing evolving trends in residential interior decoration.
When brought together into one building the mix of different apartment types is reflected in the elevations. This in turn creates points of difference through subtle changes in the overall built forms balanced with the more dramatic curving wave patterns created by the balconies.
Look and Feel
The look is one which reflects the timeless qualities of the Western Australian environment by blending local natural materials and flora with simple, elegant design, quality detailing and fine workmanship.
Donnybrook, Karratha and Toodyay stonework complimented by local timbers and zinc and copper external feature elements brings a natural, tactile feel to the apartments in the park. Using West Australian flora throughout the landscaping introduces both familiarity and local birdlife, reinforcing the connection with our place on Earth.
Using a mix of the same materials only on a grander scale, the community facility will complement the look and feel of the overall development and reference elements of the apartment buildings and their interiors. This strategy avoids alienation through the introduction of an inappropriate design language.
The Apartment Mix
Providing a mix of apartment types in the one building whilst maintaining flexibility of the mix has been addressed by providing a similar wet area and services core for the majority of the apartment types.
Assuming the largest and therefore most expensive apartment type, Type 1’s, are all located on the top floor of each building, a mix of Types 2, 3 and 4 will be required to take up all other floors.
By providing a similar core on each side of each level the apartments can be slotted in as required without tying the overall design to a fixed mix. Sales off the plan can therefore accommodate selection of individual apartment building, floor level and apartment type.
As the development progresses and there is a realised requirement to change the mix, this can be done by simply advising changes to the mix without redesigning the wet areas, service cores or the apartment types.
