2020 National Architecture Awards: The Frederick Romberg Award for Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing

Jury citation

On a tight triangular site opposite Dulwich Hill Station in Sydney’s Inner West, Studio Apartments introduces unexpected amenity, dignity and quality to an affordable housing project – a housing type that is so often typified by meagre design outcomes. The design exploits every opportunity the site allows. Four storeys of apartments fan across the broad northern face, above a shopfront and an entry porch, while a detached, sculptural stair tower anchors the open galleries at the rear in a terraced garden open to the sky. While bare at the moment, east and west flanks anticipate future development on adjacent sites.

The top of the building is shaped by differing height controls on the western portion of the site, stepping two storeys higher and allowing a generous, protected communal area on the rooftop. Every apartment has expansive, well shaded glazing to the north and a deep, sunny balcony; every apartment is naturally cross-ventilated; every apartment overlooks the street; and the fanning disposition means that every apartment has its own distinct spatial character.

The plasticity and surface qualities of concrete are celebrated in the massing, tectonics and detailing of the block, and are apparent from the scale of the street to the scale of the apartment. Interiors are suffused with light, and views to the surrounding suburb – immediately apparent from each front door – are the apartments’ backdrop. Every component of this project – from its bold urban form and scale to its carefully designed fenestration and sunscreens – works hard to make architecture. Studio Apartments defends the idea of individual spatial experience within a collective cluster. It approaches a tough typology with remarkable gentleness.

Project credits

Architect Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects; Project team Aaron Murray, Jonathon Kibble, Adrian Chan; Builder Australex Group; Town planner GLN Planning; Landscape architect Melissa Wilson Landscape Architects; Traffic engineer McLaren Traffic Engineering; Mechanical engineer ARIM Services Consulting; Structural engineer Australian Consulting Engineers; Hydraulic engineer TDL Engineering Consulting; NCC/Access consultant Credwell Consulting; Electrical consultant Joeliane Electrical Engineer Consultants; Fire consultant Mobius Fire Safety.

Studio Apartments is located in Marrickville, New South Wales, on the land of the Gadigal and Wangal peoples of the Eora nation.