edition officefor milieu

Welcome to Napier Street, our third project on this peaceful street in the heart of Fitzroy. Surrounded by culture and commerce, this quiet pocket is an understandably coveted spot, both within the suburb and among the wider band of residential areas just north of the city. This project marks our first collaboration with Edition Office – a young, formidable and highly regarded local architecture practice. Lauded in the field and known for their intuitive and rigorous approach to design, Edition Office has created a beautiful building that marries contemporary ideals with the history of the site and its surrounds. Ever-dedicated to ambitious architecture and design, we are delighted to partner with this budding architecture firm and immensely proud to introduce Napier Street, Edition Office for Milieu.

Edition Office for Milieu

Michael McCormack, Milieu Property

“We set out to speak to the memory and the history of Fitzroy, and to celebrate its elements with care, grace and respect. When encountered from the street, the building appears as a series of singular, raw concrete shells simply and unashamedly stacked, one upon the other.”

Kim Bridgland, Edition Office

Moments

Though designed as a whole, buildings are experienced at a human scale. Sights, sounds and textures shape our understanding of architecture and form our memories. Exploring this, Edition Office has presented Napier Street in a series of moments that reveal and amplify daily experiences, as you make your way from the street to your door.

On arrival, step inside and shrug off the chaos of modern life. The entry corridor is designed as a sequence of moments that heighten senses, encourage awareness of your surroundings and help you recalibrate after a long day. Cross the threshold and the building begins to reveal itself.

Entry

Small details amplify a building’s character and feel. The balustrade, for example, curves underneath to connect with the soffit below, revealing that Napier Street is a volume of stacked cups. Each apartment is transformed into a vessel that offers a sense of enclosure and protection.

The perforated metal core allows light and ventilation to flow freely through a central circulation space and into the apartments. It also acts as a filtering mechanism, obscuring the connection between public and private spaces. The presence of other residences remains, suggesting a vertical street or neighbourhood.

Detail Material

Light

Before leaving the building, you observe the intense verticality of the design. The compressed entry volume opens up to a portal that frames the sky; sunlight fills the space, which shifts with the rhythms of the day. The ephemeral quality of the entry means that each arrival or departure will feel a little different to the last.

Interiors

Carefully sleeved within the building’s raw concrete shell is a more tender, pale timber, inner skin. This delicate timber boundary embodies luxurious simplicity: a broad volume of natural light, full-width views and breezes flowing front-to-back, side-to-side. Inspiration was drawn from traditional renovations of worker’s cottages and terrace houses: removing internal walls and rooms maximises space between the boundary walls, allows for more light and air, and strengthens the interior’s connection to the outdoors. Characterised by a muted palette with splashes of material intensity, this central body houses space for solitude and quiet contemplation.

Kit

chen

an

d b

alco

ny,

ap

artm

ent

301

Kit

chen

, ap

artm

ent

301

Kit

chen

an

d d

inin

g, a

par

tmen

t 3

01

Liv

ing

, ap

artm

ent

301

Bat

hro

om

, ap

artm

ent

301

The spaces we inhabit influence our daily lives and can have subtle, or profound, effects on our perception of and interaction with architecture. Milieu’s design philosophy is founded on a commitment to delivering truly liveable spaces, through timeless, considered spaces that are designed and built to last. By engaging with collaborators who share our belief in refined simplicity and civic responsibility, we create enduring spaces of influence that enhance the neighbourhoods in which they stand.

Joinery Napier Street’s bespoke joinery is highly detailed and well-crafted. Extensive cabinetry wraps the central living element.

Glazing Full-height glazing allows outside views to reinforce the sense of considerately maximised living space.

Materials The select palette incorporates finishes that complete the building’s design intent: a celebration of texture and form. Timbers, in warm and cool tones, sit alongside different metal treatments, exposed concrete, rough and polished stone, and natural fibre carpets.

Storage The apartments are designed with large amounts of storage for daily convenience.

Floorplans Key to the building’s design is a unique floorplan. Bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens are contained by a central core, which creates an efficient flow of movement around and through substantial open space.

Environmentally Conscious The building is engineered to passively maintain comfortable temperatures year-round with cross-flow ventilation and thermal efficiency.

Liv

ing

join

ery,

ap

artm

ent

301

Liv

ing

, ap

artm

ent

40

2

Kit

chen

an

d d

inin

g, a

par

tmen

t 4

02

Bed

roo

m, a

par

tmen

t 4

02

Edition Office celebrates the use of elemental building materials, assembling them in ways both primitive and novel. With grace, care and respect for inherent material properties, our architecture is in equal measure efficient and robust, sophisticated and nuanced. Our daily practice conceives materials and process as structure and shelter with an understanding that when complete, they will exist within a cultural realm. There is always a self-aware duality between the structure as a physical entity and the contact that it makes with the cultural gaze through which it is experienced. These structures are relational vehicles; they relate to the people for who they are created, and within the place and time in which they are situated. In designing new work for the streets of Fitzroy, we begin by acknowledging the working-class community and manufacturing precinct that is part of the heritage of this place. The cultural realm that this new shelter will exist in is now one of critical contemporary thought. While dialoguing with its historic heritage, Napier Street unfolds and distorts heritage planning and formal attributes, resulting in amplification of the qualities that we appreciate and desire in contemporary living. The worker’s cottage and the terrace house, built primarily during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have formed the underlying character of residential buildings in the area. The characteristic details of these architectural types have been carefully studied and inform the design outcomes of Napier Street. Along with materiality, observations referenced by the design are relief patterns and in-fill wrought iron decoration, the expression of vertical and horizontal junctions, the composition of windows and doors to the façade, the presentation of the architectural elevation and the rhythm of strongly defined party walls that line a typical Fitzroy house. Each of the building’s levels has been articulated as a primitive tectonic form based on this catalogue: a series of elemental cups stacked to form the building as a whole, while maintaining the tectonic of the individual. We negate the contemporary graphic facade, instead crafting a quiet, enigmatic shell that connects passively and suggestively back to the street. Observing the building in detail, however, reveals a celebration of its method of assembly. With care and attention to jointing, we build on the legacy of this historic manufacturing precinct.

The intention is for a building that is purposefully restrained alongside the neighbourhood worker’s cottage. Although decorated, there is a clear austerity in this early housing type – simple buildings, basic materials, made with care but with the minimal means available. With Napier Street, we explore a tectonic that demonstrates the considerate attention we give to the assembly of buildings. The fundamental realities of necessary elements, materials and systems are evident in how they are highlighted, such as our revealed metalwork. Napier Street’s living spaces are equally restrained, allowing a clear reading of the party walls and an ability to feel the full volume of the shell and its masonry materiality. A second, internal timber cup softens this hardened quality – aligned to the masonry walls and floor, it creates an elemental, cohesive sense. The sleeping and service core sits centrally, pulled away from the party walls, permitting light and volume to pass through the space to the central void. Singular in language and tone, it allows the key elemental attributes of the interior, and the building proper, to be read, understood and celebrated. Fundamental to the design was creating an ability to perceive the full width of the site, and to receive wonderful light and views. Cues were taken from how worker’s cottages and terrace houses are often renovated: the removal of internal walls and rooms to maximise space between the boundary walls and to strengthen the connection to the rear courtyard, scooping in as much light as possible. An extended feeling of spacious connectivity to the outside are the key embellishments of Napier Street’s living spaces. Reinterpreting the balustrade became an important element. An articulated latticework of contemporary metal, it dovetails around the exposed rounded floorplate into the ceiling and is projected back down to the footpath to the street. This line carries across the façade – highlighting the break and the link between the individual floors of the building – articulating the building as stacked cups, as one idea held upon the shoulders of each level.

Edition Office on Craft and Process

Aaron Roberts & Kim Bridgland, Edition Office

Edition Office Architect

Based in Melbourne, Edition Office are lauded for their creative rigour and intuitive approach to architecture and design. Led by Kim Bridgland and Aaron Roberts, the studio consistently experiments with materiality and form to achieve unique and highly contemporary buildings, with emphasis placed on the relationship between the occupier and the environment.

Fis

h C

reek

Ho

use

, 201

6. P

ho

tog

rap

hy

by

Ben

Ho

skin

g

Mo

un

t M

arth

a H

ou

se, 2

016

Mo

un

t M

arth

a H

ou

se, 2

016

Recent Recognition

2017 Victorian Architecture Awards:Residential Architecture – Houses (New) for Fish Creek House

Houses Awards: New House over 200m2 for Fish Creek HouseSustainability for Fish Creek House (Joint Winner)Emerging Practice (Commendation)

Thinkbrick Awards:Horbury Hunt Residential Award (Finalist)

Australian Timber Design Awards: Interior Fitout (Residential) for Fish Creek House

2016 Architeam Awards: Residential – New for Fish Creek HouseArchiteam Medal

Recent Recognition

2018 World Architecture Festival Awards:Housing, Small Scale for Peel by Milieu (Shortlist)

Interior Design Excellence Awards: Hospitality for Congress by Design Office (Shortlist)Residential Multi for Peel by Milieu by DKO (Shortlist)Residential Multi for Campbell Street by DKO and SLAB (Shortlist)

Good Design Awards:Architectural Design (Residential) Gold Award for Campbell Street

Victorian Architecture Awards:Residential Architecture – Houses (New) for Campbell Street

Urban Development Institute of Australia Awards:Medium Density Residential for Hertford StreetHigh Density Residential for Peel by Milieu

Pee

l By

Mili

eu, C

olli

ng

wo

od

, 201

7. P

ho

tog

rap

hy

by

Gav

in G

reen

Co

ng

ress

, Co

llin

gw

oo

d, 2

017.

Ph

oto

gra

ph

y b

y M

org

an H

icki

nb

oth

am

Cam

pb

ell S

tree

t, C

olli

ng

wo

od

, 201

7. P

ho

tog

rap

hy

by

Tom

Bla

chfo

rd

Milieu Property Developer

Milieu takes an intelligent approach to urban development, creating unique residential projects informed by their surrounds, and designed to accommodate the rigours and routines of contemporary life. Working from Collingwood, we also contribute to the life of our community through a selection of pursuits that span hospitality, furniture, publishing and curating exhibitions and events.

Design by Studio Hi Ho

Artwork credits: Kitchen and dining, apartment 301. Hanging artworks: Works on Paper: Balance No.1 and Works on Paper: Balance No.4, 2018 by Marina Breit, image courtesy of the artist. Living, apartment 301. Hanging artwork: Wavering I, 2018 by Steve Lees, image courtesy of the artist. Bathroom, Apartment 301. Hanging artworks: Works on Paper: Balance No.10, 2018 by Marina Breit, image courtesy of the artist. Living joinery, apartment 301. Leaning artwork: AAAA6, 2016 by Dale Bordin, image courtesy of the artist. Living, apartment 402. Hanging artwork: Mini Max I, 2016 by Benjamin Barretto, image courtesy of the artist and Tristian Koenig Gallery. Bedroom, apartment 402. Hanging artwork: Will We Be Here, 2018 by Steve Lees, image courtesy of the artist.

Disclaimer: Please note that the material contained herein has been produced prior to detailed design and construction, is indicative only and does not constitute a representation by the Vendor, Agent, or Vendor’s consultant in respect to the size, form, dimensions, specifications or layout of the unit at all. The final product may change from that illustrated herein. Furniture is not included. All furniture shown is for illustrative purposes only. Artists impressions, floor plans and the project specification depict and or detail upgrade options which are not included in the purchase price unless noted in the contract of sale. Changes may be made to the detail layouts during development and construction in accord-ance with the provisions of the contract of sale or the building and or planning requirements or for compliance with relevant standards or codes. Prospective purchasers must make and rely upon their own enquiries.

Sales Enquiries

Patrick Cooney 0408 527 248 patrick@milieuproperty.com.au

milieuproperty.com.au Spaces of Influence®

Developed in partnership with

milieuproperty.com.au