LIVING NEIGHBOURHOOD
MacArthur Place Precinct
MacArthur Place Site 2-10 has been densified by adding 1 additional unit to each pre-existing one. The collective properties have been intensified through the addition of shared amenities, multi-use spaces and ecological enhancement strategies.
The amenities included to intensify include: a laundry, bike storage, bin and personal storage, a conservatory, a community vegetable garden and a barbecue pit. The outdoor spaces on the ground floor are communal, being landscaped with native planting and wooden decks to facilitate community gatherings. The buildings and landscape are integrated on each level.
On the ground floor, landscape is integrated through a blending of indoor and outdoor through bi fold doors that lead to the outer deck that can be populated with potted plants. The decks open to a wider view of the communal gardens and landscaping.
On the first floor, the balconies created by the figures of the ground floor properties, serve as a way to open the bedrooms to green spaces, framing views of the gardens and the rest
of the site as well as allowing for a space for personal balcony gardening.
The top floor, which is inaccessible to the occupants holds the greenest space, being utilised as an area of ecological enhancement through native plantings that encourage native and local bee activity.
Ecological enhancements across the site include drainage channels on either side of the stem-pattern path that connect to the water reservoir on the property of 2 MacArthur Place. This reservoir serves as a rain water collection point as well as a grey water recycling pond that filters pollutants and services the community landscaping, vegetable garden and the top floor roof terraces. The laneway interface is activated through the positioning of appealing community amenities like the conservatory, vegetable garden and bike storage that visually widen and brighten the laneway space by allowing more sunlight access and blending the boundary between site and laneway. The bins are also stored further within site, ensuring that the laneway is not a place of foul odours and undesirable sights. By positioning desirable amenities along the site edge, the laneway is activated through the use of the area as a place of relaxation where time is spent rather than abandoned. The visual permeability of the area also allows for passive surveillance from both the first-floor bedrooms as well as the glass conservatory and ground floor dwellings, ensuring the safety of the occupants.
The pre-existing site conditions of the Carlton site include a rectangular grid city planning that translates to the architecture and morphology of individual sites. The residential buildings are tall and narrow, having a thin rectangular profile that contributes to the dense urban suburb. The facades of the buildings are often set against the street in the case of contemporary residential dwellings, and have a street set back for the older Edwardian and Victorian Era dwellings. While the rectangularity of the building forms is not necessarily undesirable, the orthogonal configuration and bland repetition across the street is what creates a monotonous and worn down appearance. Through the re-design of 2-10 MacArthur Place, the rectangular forms from the pre-existing site morphology are re-purpose by dynamically angling them to create a patterning of short and elongated forms that are reminiscent of the existing site profile.
Houses average a small frontage of 5-8 metre lengths with an area ranging from 50-120 square metres depending on whether extensions have been created and the typology of the housing. This small foot print creates a tight constraint but also provides the ability to rethink building foot prints, halving the ground footprint and instead, doubling height to maximise sunlight access and green spaces for ecological enhancement.
Environmental sustainability is evidently not a consideration of prior builders and architects, with roof space not being maximised through the use of a roof terrace and spaces often too small, needing later extensions. Materials like brick and corrugated iron have high embodied energy and often do not contribute to the thermal comfort of occupants. Rather than redesigning with environmentally friendly materials, re-purposing bricks from the site and sourcing environmentally sustainable plantation wood will ensure that the site is eco-conscious, reducing the carbon footprint and energy exerted in the construction of site.
Communal amenities on site are virtually non-existant with home owners favouring square footage and monetary gain over the activation of site in making it a desirable community location. By including communal amenities, space within homes can be properly maximised and encourages interaction within a tight knit community. Green spaces in and around site are often confined to park lawns and elm trees and potted plants, the site is not maximised for ecology and biodiversity. By including roof top terraces and introducing more native species in the planting across site, native ecology will be enhanced and the access to green space increased.
There are different levels of green space access on each level, each having a different purpose.
The ground floor vegetation serves as a way to take advantage of left-over filler space between residential and communal areas, acting as a separator between the two regions, having a screening quality that is appealing and suggestive. The grey water recycling pond collects water from the units and acts as a water reservoir that serves the irrigation system around the properties. The first floor green space access is in the form of balconies, allowing for private gardening choices of potted plants, creepers and even fruit trees to be grown.
The second floor has a heavy focus on undisturbed ecological enhancement, being occupied by native planting that is designed to encourage bee activity in an area of site that is not occupied to both comfort the occupants and the bees that neither will be disturbed in their cohabitation.
The laneway is activated through the positioning of desirable and visually appealing communal amenities on the edge
of site, activating the edge quality of Carlton’s notoriously undesirable laneway access. The vegetable garden and conservatory serve as a place of leisure and relaxation where occupants may stay for minutes to hours, being able to catch up with friends and neighbours on the weekend.
The edge of site being used as a space where occupants dwell allows for the laneway to be utilised as a multifunctional space for children to play safely away from the street and parents are able to keep a close eye on them to ensure their safety. The path leading from the laneway through the unit entries also allows for an extension of the laneway toward
the centre of site. The bike shed is placed on the corner as
it makes for an easy place to store and retrieve bikes when commuting to and from work without disrupting the flow of the pedestrian path network.
The materiality chosen for the site is strongly correlated to the pre-existing materials of the area, including: timber, concrete, corrugated iron and internal timber flooring.
These materials were also chosen for their environmental capabilities. Concrete, used within the floors and walls of each dwelling act as thermal mass, increasing the internal temperature to provide comfort to occupants. Plantation timber, a sustainable and easily accessible building material is used to create a tactile experience for the occupants, taking on the qualities of warmth and comfort.
The top and bottom levels are heavily concentrated on ecological enhancement, being predominantly occupied by native vegetation.
Access and circulation around site is achieved through the organic paths that extend from each residential unit toward the edges of site and converging toward the central communal areas. The paths serve as both an extension of the street and laneway as well as a place of community and mediation between private and communal where community interaction can be enhanced through passing encounters with neighbours.
Circulation within the residential units is more limited, having a more compact foot print. Circulation is often between the internal and outdoor spaces.
The extension of each home, created by adding balconies and private deck spaces is predominantly inspired by the existing morphology of Carlton’s heritage residential buildings of the Edwardian/Victorian Era. Principles of street setbacks, front verandahs, laneway access and first floor balconies were all incorporated into the contemporary design of 2-10 MacArthur Place with the outdoor blending with the indoors to create an extension to the outdoors and increasing green space access.
The massing of the properties creates an overhang from the first level to the ground, serving as eaves that provide shading from harsh summer sun.
The private spaces, in the form of residential units, take on a modular typology inspired by both metabolic architecture as well as the repetition of the row houses in Carlton North from the Edwardian/Victorian Era. Both take on the idea of compact living and adaptability and by reducing the footprint of the residential units on the ground floor, more space is opened up from green areas and communal amenities. The transition between private and communal is mediated by the stem-mat path that takes inspiration from Alison and Peter Smithson’s Golden Lane Project, creating areas of interaction and community socialisation as the path is predominantly used by other residents of the complex, having the ability to form close knit relationships between different occupants. The path is also an extension of the home, becoming more communal as you approach the main pathways from the secondary branches.
The communal areas of the site which include: laundry, bbq pit, conservatory/green house, bike storage, general storage and a grey water recycling pond are placed toward the centre and back of site. By placing the laundry, bbq pit and general storage toward the middle strip of site, those areas are more accessible and centralised, giving a sense of unity in the smaller private community. The conservatory, bike storage and vegetable garden are placed on the edge perimeter of site as a way to activate the laneway and create an appeal to the area and visually widen the narrow access route. Within each private residential units the levels are split into living and utility. The living area is on the second floor in the form of a bedroom/balcony and the utility is on the ground floor, primarily comprising of the bathroom and kitchen. The upper level is created to be a separation from the communal area of the ground floor and its elevated height ensures that it receives more sunlight. The top floor, focusing on native ecology is not designed to be accessible to occupants, instead serving as rain water collection and encouraging the native bee population by providing nectar from native plant life that is undisturbed my human activity.
Visual permeability is achieved through the multitude of full height windows that create higher levels of sunlight access to each level of the residential units as well as harnessing passive design in creating cross ventilation air flow through each level. These channels that are created by placing windows on opposing sides of the units also allows for views to be framed to the outdoors and the more communal, landscaped areas as well as providing access to the more private decks that extend from each property.
The amount of glass and views around site ensures that there is a high level of passive surveillance that keeps occupants feeling safe around site as well as in the laneway.
Spatial permeability is created through the access to green spaces and the outdoors from each room and level. Balconies extend from the first floor bedrooms, opening the small units to a wider view and the ground floor opens to timber decks and frames views of the communal garden spaces, creating a better living environment as the units have access to fresh air, green spaces and sunlight.
