Eight apartments (Multiple Dwellings)

A new project calls for 8 apartments in a suburban street. 



2 bedrooms with 2 bathrooms units with 1 parking bay each.

Beachside town house takes the North facing advantage

Taking up a sweet spot on a sleepy country beachside town lot, previously subdivided and live on by the owner, this final home is to occupy the corner portion with it's north facing side boundary taking in it's own courtyard.  A balcony to the street will enjoy the upper floor views down the street to the waters edge. The balcony also give greater protection to the street facing glass areas from the low eastern morning sun.

 With the desire to elongate the north facing axis and in order to satisfy the planning regulations, the front door must face the side street to reduce the setbacks to the street boundary but the side is precious private outdoor space so by simply bringing the front entry out and putting the door to the side we achieve satisfaction of 'the rules' and still keep the door to the main street along with the garage. 

Many people now understand that the living areas should preferably be facing north, but a mistake that is often made is the Alfresco is placed on the north side blocking the low warm winter sun from entering the home via the large northern facing windows.  Alfresco's are ideal on the west or east elevation which help shade the home from the low summer sun which is more difficult to control without loosing the view.  In this situation however the depth of the lot prevents such a placement and, having to place it on the North side, I was anxious to allow in the winter sun through the Alfresco roof in winter. 

These two images are rendered at different times of the year.  The first in the middle of summer show the advantage of a wall that directly faces north.  With a standard eave width, the sun is prevented from entering the home even though there are large windows facing north.  The second image shows the same elevation in mid winter and because the sun is much further North in the sky, the low angle allows fantastic penetration of warm sunshine. You can see my concern with the Alfresco blocking that sunshine which is why we are exploring a roof that allows sun penetration in winter.  There are variable ways to achieve this with varying levels of sophistication, expense and convenience.  The deep penetration of sun into the dining area is illustrative.  A dining area is ideal to receive this sun because it generally exposes more floor area without furniture.  A hard surface like tile or slate will store heat energy during the day and give it off during the evening resulting in a more comfortable home that requires less heating.

A well designed home can help reduce those energy bills even without the higher costs of using solar or PV systems.  Careful design and placement of windows and eaves can significantly affect the overall comfort.

New period home

This new home will take up the space at the rear of an existing much older home in an area known for it's period homes from around the early 1900's.  The clients wanted to build something that is in keeping with surrounding older homes and have chosen to build in framework with cladding rather than double brick construction so common in this city.   The front verandah will use turned posts, fretwork with wrot brackets and the windows will have some additional glazing bars to recapture some of the charm of the period homes.

Designed to meet the needs of a young family with room to grow, the home has 4 bedrooms including a large master suite with it's own ensuite bathroom and walk in robe, a large open living area plus a separate room for games, perhaps a pool table.  























The kitchen is decent enough but then it has an additional closed off area as a larder/ pantry but with a sink for the messy dishes to be closed off to the larger area.

Of the formal entry there is provision for a timber staircase to access the roof space where there will be a loft area for storage, play and maybe a trainset.  This area may even be used for sleeping for stay-overs etc.

The external walls will be insulated and clad with a cement sheet product that in shape resembles something of the older cladding boards and painted in a modern but reflective colour scheme.

There are many older graceful homes that have been restored in this area and this new home will sit in well in it's suroundings, complimenting the area with it's new charm.

Triple the Elegance

These three homes replace a tired old home on a wide block. Built for the modern world they exude elegance and luxury.

The streetscape complete

With views over the tops of the houses behind as the hill falls away these homes have been built upside down with the minor bedrooms and a media room filling out the ground floor and the entry leading straight up the stairs and past a sumptuous fully equipped kitchen and dining area to a large open living area with a large balcony to enjoy the outlook.
Back down the passage past a study is a well appointed master suite and a generous ensuite with a full bath and a huge walk in robe.  The master also has it's own balcony that overlooks the street.

Multiple Dwelling illustration

This is a project designed by Amano Homes and I only prepared the 3D illustrations you see here.  Amano Homes have been specialising in Multiple Dwellings and have gained considerable expertise in this specialist development style which requires extensive knowledge of separate portions of the state and local authority planning codes.

Multiple Dwellings for Affordable Living.

This is an early image of my next project for affordable living apartments in Nollamara. There are many extra rules and regulations that must be followed in this council in order to gain approval and to add to the pressure the council is soon to ban this type of development on this lot and others in the lower density so it's urgent to have it submitted as soon as possible. Together with an experienced Town Planner, Grandesign has prepared a solution that is ready to be submitted. 

Multiple Dwellings in Osborne Park

This client has a regular suburban lot with a single old house but because of the increased density from recent planning changes, and a new market opening up for apartment living in the suburbs, we have the opportunity to create eight apartments with two bedroom, two bathroom, two carport / store setup for more affordable living.

These images are not the finished ones but are enough to indicate the final product.

Apartments in Perth have generally been confined to central city locations either in Perth itself or in one of the regional city locations such as Fremantle overlooking water or in Joondalup. But with the rapid increase in land prices putting the option of buying a house or even a small unit out of the price range of many people, apartments are becoming an option and are ideally suited for young people with no children and no desire to look after a yard.

The 'Skinny' on staying slim.

A client with a typical suburban block has benefited from the upgrade in density codings and so the old rental home is to be demolished and the lot subdivided into 2 lots, one of which will be a home for family and the other lot to be sold off. 

Stage 1 is the narrow lot of around 8.5m which does present a challenge but being in control of the shared boundary line and being able to build for 2 storeys on the boundary does help get everything on there. Despite the narrow lot of 320m2, we've managed to get a very comfortable 4 bedroom 3 bathroom family home with theatre room and large entertaining main living area which spills out to a large Alfresco across the full width of the home. Just leaves enough of a back lawn to suit a small dog!

The street elevation is intended to project a contemporary rendered facade with rendered brick, balcony and a combination of window shapes to keep things interesting.

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And after the builder has made some changes, the home is built.

Generations spreading out for a country feel

A large home designed to hold 2 generations of family as a daughter and her daughter join together with her parents to create a new combined family home.





The home will enjoy a larger country lot about 4 times the size of the average city lot in in an area on the edge of the current city limits.

Designed to enable the two families to enjoy their own space, sharing an entry and laundry in order to satisfy local restrictions of only one home allowed, the design is zoned for a basically turn left or turn right after the front door.  Each side has their own garage with internal entry into their areas, both nice and close to their own kitchens for shoppers entry. Each also have private living areas with open plan kitchen, dining, living. Overall there are five bedrooms, three bathrooms, an office, study nook, extra storage for business files in one of the garages and a very large shared laundry.   The main sumptuous kitchen enjoys an attached scullery where the more messier items can be tucked away and shut off.

The corner lot faces south and down the gentle and the two main bedrooms will enjoy a quiet look over the subdivision and the hills, protected from the harsh sun. The main living areas will face north allowing them to enjoy the low winter sun for full penetration when it's cold which means the house will require less heating in winter.  In summer, regular eaves will protect the north facing glass from the harsh sun because it is so high in the sky. Windows facing east and the side street will need some protection via deciduous or other planting and there are only two west facing windows requiring protection from the late afternoon sun and one of those will be a highlight window so will have lots of protection by the eave until very late.

I've encouraged these clients to use the standard 2c cream blocks to keep costs down however we are going to use a different mortar finish technique to give the home a more rustic feeling.  Rather than scrape the joints out and give a clean look to the bricks we are going to let the mortar spill out and be squashed against the wall like they do for limestone blocks. This is called Parget. The 2c bricks are very widely used for the economics but it does mean they start to look rather dull and common.  This will give the brick quite a different and effective look for a country estate house as though it has been built in old limestone blocks.

Some adjustment and re-looks at the colours.











The entrance gable will be open and bold utilising natural materials to set a strong statement to the large home.















With sensitive landscaping the home should prove to provide a graceful statement. 



I have to admit that I cheat on renderings because I drag the sun around to help light and shadow the front elevation which helps the client read and appreciate the home however because the front faces south (the rear perfectly faces north) there won't be much sun falling on the front elevation like I've shown above.  This is actually a good thing with only bedrooms occupying these windows and so direct sun and the heat it brings is not desirable. This also gave me the opportunity to loose the eaves which are not really need with no sun to keep out which creates the period style the clients are after.  This image below is a true sun position render and also shows the elevated position of the home on the semi-rural corner property located with other larger properties. 

If I was cleverer I would show the front driveway cutting into the slope.  The side slipway is no longer part of the project.  because the lot is on a corner, there is room to access the rear of the property off the side road.

Construction has begun so it will be wonderful to see it complete as a home.

'Splitter' is looking fine

This new home for a developer is to be built on half of an existing lot, the old home to be demolished.

The design is close to a replication of a previous successful design except we have swung the master suite to the rear and dropped the balcony over looking the street. Keeping with the original cubic inspired style but without the balcony and only two minor bedrooms upstairs, it does get harder to create an interesting front elevation.  And so it becomes necessary to introduce interest in other ways.



                                                            So we are considering a timber board finish to the upper floor and looking at various options for colours and styles.  External Timber finish is no longer common here, with brick and rendered finishes more than dominating. Timber requires careful selection because it incurs a higher maintenance factor.  I'm liking bleached boards but let's see what the owner decides.  They do have the final say.

 














So lets see how it finished up.

The final selection of cladding was a composite plastic plank that does not require any additional finish or maintenance.

The front study enjoys extra height windows 

The rear of the home enjoys a double
 height alfresco dining area.