2023 Gallery
Winner: Apartment or Unit
March Studio for SPRING STREET
Situated within a 70's Brutalist building, this apartment with prime views to Parliament House and Yunken Freeman’s State Government Offices is a play on an ongoing evolving case study of light and materiality. Surrounded by changing expansive views, the design endeavor is a fundamental exercise in reduction and simplification.
Jury Citation
The task of reimagining an apartment can be a challenging one. Adjustments are constrained by the existing building structure, and, in a predominantly interior setting, it can be hard to find context to refer and respond to. These limitations are overcome with confidence and flair in this accomplished apartment fitout, which is resolute in its response to place.
The brief was to rework a 1970s apartment in central Melbourne, and the architects have relished the opportunity to pay tribute to the home’s former glory in a building that was once dubbed the Tower of Power. A crown of extruded aluminium panels is a mercurial canvas that registers changing light and city views. Inspired by the reflective ceiling of McIntyre and Partners’ Parliament Station (1982) – the metro station beneath the apartment building – it explores how the fabric of the city can be reinterpreted at a domestic scale.
Newly expanded social spaces are generously scaled and intentionally loose, enabling reconfiguration. A restrictive material palette of concrete, Tasmanian blackwood, brass and silver aluminium is punctuated with intense colour, achieving a design that is both joyful and unexpected.
This accomplished project possesses irrefutable joie de vivre and demonstrates how apartment design can simultaneously offer escape from, and immersion in, urban life.
