Australian Design Review

This project is an urban sculpture masquerading as a building, tucked away in the back streets of North Melbourne. It is a fragment of the matrix of converted industrial buildings that are changing the demography and urban character of the city’s fringe.

The converted warehouse is comprised of two three-storey dwellings that interlock in plan and section to form engaging voids, double height spaces, and overlapping programs within an extremely limiting site area of 125 square metres.

The project negotiates between maximising the volume and usable floor area inside and the planning regulations that sculpt the building form from the outside. The result is a series of complex forms blurring the boundaries between roof and wall, an elaborate interplay of space and void within a labyrinth of angled walls and roofs which critiques the conventional ‘wedding cake’ form.

*Team* Architect: Billy Kavellaris