Adela Apartments | Jost Architects

The project came about with the development of a large residential block close to the Elwood foreshore and Port Philip Bay. The brief simply requested a spacious apartment product that was cutting edge and contemporary but subtle both inside and out. The concept of a large apartment resulted in a single level dwelling with the proportions of a small house, was low maintenance, functionally adaptable to appeal to a range of potential residents and highly sustainable.  

Externally, rather than go for a standard “stacked wedding cake” form the building was set back significantly from the adjoining properties on the lower levels. This allowed the main volume of the building to have vertical sides and reduced footprint creating a larger landscape strip between adjoining buildings. The design strategy was to keep the building facades simple and at a scale which could be understood from a distance but on approach the texture of the building materials begin to reveal themselves. These can then change again in different times of the sunlight, day and season. An automated operable louvre screens to either end of the building are used for controlling light and ventilation with being able to orientate almost 180 degrees, completely shut or stacked to the sides for a clear opening even in high winds. Other than their environmental function they add to the constant changing aesthetic by adding a living, moving aspect to the façade. The solid white textured concrete balustrades deliver sun control below and privacy between dwellings but allow a clear view beyond. The black stainless chrome clad circular column ties the building together vertically and gives it a touch of bling. As with the other finishes it works at different visual scales. It camouflages its width and size through shape, tone and reflection but doesn’t disappear completely and looks amazing when standing right next to it. Everything in this building was considered and detailed to achieve a incredibly simple and completely seamless combination of finish and function. This included not only standard items such as materials, claddings, fixtures, joinery and concealing building services etc but integrating all the elements required to achieve a high performing, thermally efficient and sustainable building (8 Star NatHERs rating) . How it was working was evident very early on in the construction phase and we’ll be monitoring how it is functioning with the residents both  economically and with level of comfort over the next 12-18 months. We had the opportunity to produce a “Building User Manual” which has been an idea of mine for many years. It’s a manual required as part of the council’s Sustainability Compliance Assessment at the end of construction. Knowing that people don’t read manuals we designed an A4 double sided laminated page which instructs the resident of the apartment on how to use their home efficiently and sustainably. It is very generic to all dwellings and has very little text and was based on aircraft safety cards in planes so anyone can understand what they are looking at and all in 2-3 mins of reading it. The building can have the highest rating in the world but if you don’t know how to use it properly that becomes irrelevant.  Sustainability was a really important aspect of the project for us and we wanted to show that a really good piece of unique architecture can be highly sustainable. To the credit of our clients, they fully supported this and it was embraced pretty unilaterally across the team involved.