The Neighbourhood Tapestry model delivers a set of strategies that can generate positive change in our suburbs at a scalable level that can impact the sustainable growth of our city(ies).
This is about making our cities better places to live. To facilitating an enriching and adaptive way of living which is inherently urban but which also connects us to the natural and to each other. It is about embracing diversity, delivering housing affordability, and doing so in a sustainable and regenerative way. It is about enhancing what our suburbs are capable of being and developing a model that is highly attractive to the market.
In Collaboration With --
Exploding The Blocks
Typically the Apartment form within a suburban context comprises a 2-3 storey singular mass with long flanks to the side boundaries and a wedding cake form in response to Planning Scheme setback envelopes.
By breaking the block into smaller elements, this results in Diminished Visual Bulk that is more in scale with existing dwellings and better able to “fit” with an existing suburban context of mostly detached dwellings; Improved Responsiveness to Context and Site with smaller dwelling elements that are able to be flexibly arranged in response to a site’s location, size, and orientation; Views Across the Site and views to sky are opened up between the buildings for occupants but also for neighbours.
'The Space Between'
By taking the often windowless central hallway typical of the apartment form and inverting it into an open space network, people are able to instead move through a shared landscaped space to arrive home. By shifting the focus from solely the built form to the ‘space between’, an urban environment is able to be created where we are connected to each other and to nature- a biophilic outcome for residents, a habitat for various species, replacing carbon dioxide with oxygen, cooler suburbs, and a harvesting and filtering of rainwater.
-- "In this open and natural open space setting, we make eye contact, we engage with each other, even if just a simple hello. Our children are able to play together. We may just sit and read under a tree. This is a universally accessible place for many generations to co-exist and thrive." --
Responsiveness and Replication
By breaking the apartment form into smaller units, this approach is better able to respond and adapt to different sites (orientation, proportion, size) and their contexts (built height, scale, mass, local planning constraints). The Neighbourhood Tapestry model can also be scaled up across larger consolidated sites at precinct level.
Through flexible deployability, the Neighbourhood Tapestry model creates a platform for real change in relation to the density, viability, affordability, diversity, and sustainability of urban life.
Adaptability
-- "The Neighbourhood Tapestry model is a framework which supports a palette of materials and optional elements in order to respond to context and market forces." --
Sustainability
Built form, location, and height have been driven by shaping the landscaped open space network on site - the architecture is seen as a carrier for natural elements to colonise at all levels, including deep soil canopy trees, planters, green roofs and communal food production. This is a biophilic response and provides for a performative landscape in terms of seasonal shading, evaporative cooling, and the collection, filtration, and storage of rainwater and potentially grey water.
Passive design strategies such as orientation, natural ventilation, optimised window sizing and location, and a highly insulated and air-tight envelope have been deployed to enhance occupant health & wellbeing while driving down energy consumption and costs. Renewable energy is generated on site and charging for electric vehicles provided. With an all-electric scheme, the Neighbourhood Tapestry model can be zero carbon ready.
Architectural Drawings
