The team behind the award-winning Silt apartments at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane are tipping their next project to be just as successful.
Construction is set to commence on Walan (also at Kangaroo Point) which is the second apartment collaboration between Brisbane-based architecture firm Bureau Proberts and developer GBW Group.
The standout feature of the 14-storey apartment development will be a vertical forest with full-size trees and mature shrubs growing throughout the building, emerging over two storeys. A feature, Cam Ginardi of GBW Group says, that is the first of its kind in Australia.
“This has never been achieved in apartment living in Australia before,” he says.
“We’ve taken the green wall to new heights by creating a vertical forest.”
The trees will grow up the spine of the Main Street elevation and interact with the building’s specially-designed screening, drawing inspiration from the adjacent tree-studded Kangaroo Point cliffs.
In an article he authored for Architecture & Design back in May, Architect Liam Proberts, creative director of Bureau Proberts, says that his firm wanted to create something truly special for the residential market with Walan, asking themselves ‘how can we create a home in an urban residential tower?’
“Instead of thinking of them as apartments, we thought of each floor like a house in its size and connection to the outside,” he says.
“What we set out to achieve was a contemporary ‘Queenslander in the sky’ with all rooms opening to a veranda edge, providing cross ventilation while maintaining privacy.
“The unique façade references the river’s edge and draws on the fissures and openings of the surrounding cliff embedding the building in the landscape of Kangaroo Point. This connection to the cliffs is continued internally, using carefully selected travertines and natural stones for benchtops and wall features throughout.
“This entirely-glass building engages with the landscape with specially-designed screening that provides a veil between living space and external spaces, while modulating the light and heat of our sub-tropical environment.
“At this high-end of the market, we can also get direct feedback from potential buyers. They have a preference for timber floors because of the softer, home-like feel. However, to avoid the high maintenance of external timber floors on balconies at scale, the internal timber floors will transition to an external tiled floor instead.
“To extend the sense of ‘home’, each residence also has a unique, pocket garden reminiscent of a more suburban garden, whilst referencing the cliff and river-scape of the immediate area."
Construction is expected to begin imminently.
