How Rothelowman designed Hirsch & Faigen's Kirra Beach apartment development, Emerson
Some of the finest Gold Coast apartment developments have been designed by Rothelowman, one of Queensland's leading architecture practices, in recent years.
Rothelowman, who has offices in the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, put together the designs for The Monaco, which recently sold-out with an average sale price of around $5 million, as well as Dune at Main Beach, SPG Land's massive $800 million apartment towers on Ferny Avenue.
Rothelowman was commissioned for the first Gold Coast apartment development from the Melbourne-based developer Hirsch & Faigen
Hirsch & Faigen them design the 14-level, Palm Beach apartment development Hemingway, named after the famous author and featuring a distinct blush façade. That sold out all of its 78 apartments in just a few months.
For Emerson, Hirsch & Faigenmore boutique Kirra Beach, Coolangatta offering, Hirsch & Faigen the team put together something a little different to Hemingway.
In their statement to the Gold Coast City Council, Rothelowman said 100 Musgrave Street offered the opportunity to consolidate a historically rich, vibrant and evolving part of the City.
"Primarily the scheme seeks to challenge the “bias of the linear coastal city” by focusing on the interfaces created between the ground plane and the public spaces of the street," the statement read.
They stated that, although Emerson was a relatively modestly scaled development, the prime corner location allowed the scheme to challenge the prosaic and prevalent “blunt street edges” that typify the oceanfront boulevards of the City, instead favouring a generous display of communal coastal activities.
"Historically the City has celebrated it’s outdoor activities; pool’s exposed to the street, sun lounges under umbrellas overlooking the footpath, gardens framing views into and out of the semi-private spaces of development.
"Observations of this playfulness have been paramount in the exploration of an undercroft as the primary device in creating a permeable and porous interface between the semi-private and public realms of the City."
The Rothelowman team said that the overall composition of the scheme favours a simple and informed diagram that is analytical of the surrounding precinct.
"A three storey “street building” provides a direct response to the Cities desire to create a strong “Urban Ground”. This is further accentuated through a series of dancing, curved and landscaped balconies that shift amongst a rational and expressed structural order which ties the ground to the tower .
"A simple plate allows for the transition from podium to tower architecture creating a deep eave that is visually demonstrative of an overt subtropical approach to buildings.
"The tower architecture follows a similar approach to simplicity. Profiled slab edges project forward creating shade and protection. The line of enclosure to the tower dwellings is kept back from the edge, undulating and folding to craft views. Recesses in the façade offer the opportunity for residents to tailor small gardens within the building form offering more immediate amenity in the context of the expansive and broad longer aspects to the ocean.
These small indents also allow for the control of cross ventilation through openings away from the face of the building enabling better resident control of breezes in windy conditions.
"The overall approach to the design has been one of deliberate and measured analysis. The building is modest in expression favouring performance and liveability over decoration. A relative simplicity enables the aspirations of coastal living to be prioritised; engaging with the environment in a meaningful and deliberate way.