Located in Brunswick is 388 Barkly Street, an apartment development designed by Melbourne-based architecture practice, DREAMER in collaboration with Breathe, which looked to create apartments that would encourage family living.
"An ambition to create some lovely townhouse style apartments, we've ended up calling them townhomes," explains architect and director of DREAMER, Ben Shields. "Key to that was trying to provide an alternative to the family home and just provide an opportunity for people to get all the amenities of a house in an apartment-style living."
The development comprises two one-bedroom apartments, four two-bedroom apartments and six three-bedroom apartments, set inside and above an old red brick warehouse.
"We really did think a lot about how we could create apartments that would help people want to shift from houses to apartments," says Ben Shields.
388 Barkly Street achieves an average natHERS rating of 7.5 stars, with a 39KW solar array. In addition, the car parking has been future-proofed with EV charging available, along with plenty of bike storage. The apartments are flooded with natural light, and the central void in the developments allows for cross ventilation in all the apartments.
The courtyards and incidental outdoor areas have been planted with native flora to encourage local insects and birds to engage. DREAMER also used other biophilic design principles in the apartments, such as light and air, views of vegetation and timber used internally.
Apartment living has yet to be fully embraced in Melbourne, or around Australia, which could be due to the poor design of most apartment buildings. 388 Barkly Street wanted the perfect mix of house, apartment and townhouse, with ample space, plenty of storage, good quality materials and access to parks, shopping and public transport.
"People in apartments just tend to live a bit smaller, and so there's a change in mindset," says Ben Shields. "And I think wrapping their head around the fact that you actually can't have everything that you might want into an apartment can also help people to just live a little bit more modestly."
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