High Street Apartments / Gardiner Architects

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A single central, open stairwell wraps around the lift. The south stair façade is built with glass bricks so that gentle natural light can wash into the space. When homes are stacked vertically, the stairwell and rooftop garden are places of impromptu interaction and community connectionInside the apartments, the palette is warm with splashes of color, while still restrained enough to allow future residents to add their own style to the spaces. With long-term occupation in mind, opportunities for storage are maximized so that growing families can expand within the space.Text description provided by the architects.The High Street Apartments is Gardiner Architects’ first high-rise multi-residential project. Located inThornbury, Melbourne, the project is a mixed-use building, with thirteen apartments above a ground floor carpark and restaurant fronting High Street.The building employs prefabricated cross-laminated timber (CLT) construction to achieve a more sustainable outcome, with the apartments achieving an 8.4-star rating on average. This building methodology allowed for greater flexibility of layout, with each level and apartment a completely individual design responding to the varied orientation, size, and aspect of each apartment.Overall, the High St Apartments sees a very liveable outcome, that responds to its context and exemplifies the need to test and develop new, more sustainable construction methods in Australia.