The city-wide conversion of Sydney’s industrial precincts continues with another massive chunk of land in Roseberry being prepped for a new $295 million residential project.
The near-50,000sqm block bordered by Crewe Place, Stedman Street and Roseberry and Rothschild Avenues in Roseberry will be divvied up into four parcels, to be delivered in as many phases over the next five years.
All but one of the buildings currently on the site will be demolished by developer Meriton to make way for 13 brand new buildings, all multi-residential. One 10-storey office building (5 Roseberry Avenue) will be spared by Australia’s largest residential developer but will be transformed into apartments as part of Phase 4.
Phase 1 is currently underway and will include 291 apartments and a child care centre within five buildings ranging from two to seven storeys. It was designed by SJB architects - who also won a competition to design Stage 3 of the project - and it has commenced construction.
Phase 2 is now at planning and has been designed by multi-residential experts, DKO Architecture, the team that delivered one of Australia’s most sustainable examples of medium density housing back in 2014, and is currently working with Breathe Architecture on another apartment development in nearby Alexandria.
The L-shaped blocks will be chamfered on their ends to exaggerat the entrance to the site link.
Phase 2 has a site area of approximately 6,896sqm (excluding dedications) which will accommodate two oppositely-arranged L-shaped buildings and roughly 190 apartments. The buildings each feature a chamfered corner at the top of their L, which exaggerates the entrance/exit to a diagonal pedestrian link that will run through the site and connect with an internal courtyard and spill out onto seating from activated retail edges.
PTW’s masterplan shows that link will also eventually connect with a new public park to be developed directly in front of the DKO buildings, but residents will have to wait until the completion of Phase 4 for this access. Until then, south facing apartments will look out over the existing warehouse buildings that currently reside on the site.
The buildings will eventually spill out onto a public oval complex. Landscape architecture and top image from Arcadia, bottom image by DKO Architecture.
The facades of the buildings are fairly simple, comprising a vertically stacked apartment methodology made different by a mixture of verandas and loggia. DKO have instead used various materials and textures as opposed to an over-articulated built form to create difference and interest on their exterior walls.
The facade is mainly composed of three main elements; face brick, precast and metal, which are used extensively throughout the street elevations. Pigmento Brown zinc in a standing seam will clad the exterior of the setback top floor apartments and appear to form a sharp ‘metal hat’ for the buildings. Painted precast concrete panels will clad the majority of the buildings’ mid sections while Bowral Blue bricks will be used to form a solid base.
The development continues the flood of new mass-scale residential projects in and around the Roseberry area. Recently completed projects nearby include ‘Arise’ development on 57 Rothschild Avenue by SJB Architects, ‘Valentino’ at 59 Rothschild Avenue by Tony Caro Architecture and ‘Otto’ by Turner architects.
It is believed that Phase 3 and Phase 4 will be delivered in separate DAs and, if Phase 1 and 2 are precedence, we can expect a few big named architects to deliver them.
