Architect and Builder January/February 2016 | Page 45

WEST ELEVATION

The foremost driver of the concept was to ensure
the architects strengthened and built on the strong
Main Road retail street charm with which the area is
still blessed. The site previously offered little or no
continuity to this Main Road shopping experience,
so the lack of balance relative to the opposite side
of the road was unfortunate. The architects had to
design a full length of retail opportunities facing onto
to Main Road.
Another challenge that became a design
opportunity was, with the demolition of he existing
building, the architects now had to respect the new
road widening reserve that would set the building
back from its previous line by about 5.0 m. By entering
into an agreement with the council, the client was
able to lease this land, and then pave and landscape
it to become a great outdoor concession area for the
two restaurant tenants that occupy the ground floor
tenancies at either end of the building. There are
future plans for further landscaping and tree planting
that will provide more scaled greenery and shade to
these outdoor areas.
Special attention was paid, in the design process,
to acknowledge the significance of the traffic light
intersection of Main and Summerly Roads. From
an urban design aspect, the architects needed to
ensure that the architecture provided a focal point
that addressed this.

separated to form the entrance to the bulding with a
tall glazed entrance screen. A secondary application of
cantilevered horizontal aluminium pergolas at walkway
level and vertical aluminium screens at the office level
then reinforce or help to further shade and articulated
these areas.
The Summerly Road face is, typically, a more solid
architecture with punctured openings in response to
the smaller, more residential scale and feel of that road.
The parking court elevation that faces predominately
south and east was conceived as an interplay of bold
tall wall planes that screened the service areas of the
building with tall glass faces between that resulted
in a very interesting sculptural quality to this side
of the building that neighbours onto the adjoining
residential apartments.
External Finishes
It was very important that the architects got the
balance right when designing a new contemporary
commercial building in a more traditional and “village”
like streetscape. The varied use of natural face brick
with traditional plaster and paint was very noticeable in
the immediate area. The architects adopted this palette

External Building Envelope
The external envelope and architectural façade
design was influenced by a number of complimentary
factors. Good passive design principles are always
a responsible starting point that includes optimum
orientation and clear understanding of the impact of
seasonal sun angles, best views and other climatic
considerations. That is then articulated further to
ensure that the elevational treatment responds to
the human scale and interaction at ground floor and
the critical focal and feature aspects of the site to
ensure an exciting and bold presence where required.
The Main Road façade was designed to be more
open and transparent to reflect the life and activity
of the retail space and the offices above. Deep
reveals within an overriding “architectural” frame,
allow for an interesting play of shadow and light that
culminate in the corner box being the focal point to
the intersection. These two box frames are then
Pam Golding

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