The Collie St. Apartment refurbishment is situated in central Fremantle. The apartment is within a C1890’s building originally known as the ‘Oceanic Hotel’. The original building has undergone many changes over its lifetime including conversion to 6 strata titled apartments in the early 1980’s.

The refurbishment project relates to unit 6 on the first floor and involved, unusually, an addition to the exterior, the partial rebuilding of an original verandah over the footpath and significant remodelling of the interior.

In this project it was proposed to rebuild the original verandah as a way of gaining approval for the more contemporary addition to the east elevation. However an adjoining owner did not want the verandah structure in front of her apartment. Negotiations with the adjoining owner resulted in only two thirds of the verandah being constructed – only the part of the verandah in line with unit 6.

This partial reconstruction led to an interesting design outcome – rather than a purely historic replica, the veranda’s western end reads as if ‘cut’ in section with a full height glass panel / balustrade to the end, rather than returning the wrought iron lacework, to emphasise it’s incompleteness.

Apartment fit out
Collie St, Fremantle
2001

J. Trevelyn & I. Alexander
Michael Patroni
Dimmity Walker
Andrea Quagliola
Paul Santillo
ICS Australia
Aliocha Merka

Credits

Client
Project Team


Structural Engineer
General Contractor
Photography

The architectural concept was to replan the apartment in three main zones; living kitchen & dinning as one, bathroom, bedroom and studies another and balcony guests room and second bathroom as the third. Large-scale cabinetwork was used as the main ordering device, with several layers of fixed and operable screens to achieve environmental and privacy control.

The cabinet work box that dominates the main living room allows the kitchen living and dining spaces to be connected while giving some definition to each space, it also performs a variety of storage functions incorporating two fireplaces, the television, stereo and media storage, perspex bookshelves, the wall oven and fridge and a walk in pantry / store room which is illuminated with natural light coming through the perspex shelves. The timber veneer to all the cabinetwork was chosen as a warm tactile material in contrast to the surrounding space, which was given a fairly neutral treatment, using various shade of white for the walls floor and ceilings. The other main cabinet provides additional storage space and defines the edge of the second zone; you have to pass through it to get to the studies bathroom and main bedroom.

The printed screen to the street is part of the layers of screening both from within to the outside – such as restricting the view of a multi storey car park structure across the road, and from the outside in – the screen to the balcony and opalescent bathroom provides a level of privacy as it appears opaque to the street yet it is semi transparent from within and distorts the shadows of the occupants when illuminated at night. The print on the screen is derived from a vine growing on a wall; it is an abstraction of a natural image - an idea of a garden, in contrast to the urban inner city environment.
A timber louvred screen on the balcony provides some privacy to the second bedroom and bathroom while permitting cross ventilation and a northern aspect borrowed from the balcony. In the living room recessed blinds in the ceiling drop down in front of the glazed sliding doors to the balcony, closing off the living room from the outside. Manually operated and motorised exterior blinds are used to cut out the east sun in summer.

 

The clients have a strong sense of environmental responsibility and were concerned with material choices being sustainable and fixtures energy efficient. As the project was largely within an existing building the environmental considerations were mainly related to sun and heat control, and permitting good cross ventilation.

Award
RAIA (WA Chapter) Residential Award - 2006