The site wraps around an existing heritage bluestone building and navigates two different street conditions – Lygon Street, a busy hospitality strip, and Edward Street, a quiet residential road. Engaged to deliver the architecture, with Foolscap Studio collaborating on the interiors, our design needed to address both of these conditions.
The building addresses these two conditions with a varied massing and material approach. It primarily faces Lygon Street with a textured, terracotta-coloured ribbed precast concrete façade. This three-storey element aligns with the prevailing height of buildings along the retail strip, being roughly two to three storeys. Above, a lighter contrasting form in corrugated and perforated metal panels extends from the heavier base.
Along Edward Street, a dark charcoal brick form steps down to meet the lower-scale residential streetscape. The brickwork pattern is both hit-and-miss and dimpled – textures specifically chosen to have a dialogue with the bluestone wall of the adjacent heritage building. This charcoal form is intentionally designed to appear as two-storey house on the building’s edge.
The building is planned like a donut – a ring of apartments accessed off an external covered walkway, with an open-air, planted courtyard at its centre. This green lung gives every apartment cross-flow ventilation and natural light from multiple sides.
119a-121 Lygon Street,
Brunswick East
An apartment building with ground floor hospitality for Milieu.
The site wraps around an existing heritage bluestone building and sits between two different street conditions – Lygon Street, a busy hospitality strip, and Edward Street, a quiet residential road. Our design needed to address both of these conditions.
