Descon wins Victoria architectural building award 2023
TRADITIONAL LAND OWNERS
Wurundjeri
YEAR
2023
CHAPTER
Victoria
CATEGORY
Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing
Sustainable Architecture
BUILDER
Descon Group
PHOTOGRAPHER
Tom Ross
PROJECT SUMMARY
38 Albermarle Street delivers Australia’s first medium density ‘built-to-rent-to-own’ (BTRTO) development facilitating healthier, socially connected and financially sustainable lives in Melbourne’s inner north-west, allowing residents to rent new apartments for up to five years, with the option to purchase at the lease’s end.
The development integrates with the site’s former wool store turned cassette factory building — a significant, early industrial structure by Australian architect Harry Norris. Referencing inner-Melbourne’s 1950s, 60s and 70s walk-up apartments, the development is split into two towers connected by an external breezeway, softening the public/private transition by inviting residents to personalise communal spaces as extensions of their homes.
Seeking to deliver amenity beyond the typical apartment building, Fieldwork delivered valuable shared facilities accommodating pets, kids and a diverse cohort of residents: a multi-purpose workshop, laundrette, secure parcel drop-off space, lending library, dog wash station and multipurpose ‘scout hall’ — each fostering incidental moments of neighbourly interaction.
38 Albermarle St, Kensington | Fieldwork – Australian Institute of Architects (architecture.com.au)
