Part of the landscape…

At 3 Norfolk Road, the apartments respond to and take advantage of the site’s position adjacent to the heritage Surrey Gardens, while also maximising opportunities for sunlight and cross-ventilation breezes.

The proposal also seeks to provide a dialogue between the commercial usages to the north (toward Canterbury Road) and the more residential scale surrounding the park, while maintaining an overarching building identity which responds to both interfaces.

An apartment building with retail spaces

The building is expressed as a three-storey podium element which wraps around from the western façade to the south. This takes the form of a traditional commercial archetype with a retail, commercial and lobby form at the ground level, with a two-storey residential element forming a cohesive volume above.

The site rises to the south and east along the Surrey Gardens frontage, presenting an opportunity for the retail component to be absorbed within a recessive plinth form to the park frontage. This creates ground floor commercial activation to Norfolk Road and residential activation to Surrey Gardens.

A fine grain approach

The materiality approach to the exterior of the building achieves an additional level of fine-grain detail and texture to the façade. With a palette of high-quality natural materials (including natural stone cladding and a variety of natural masonry and metallic finishes) the selected tones and textures complement the landscape.

Materials have been selected which will weather well and maintain their appearance over the course of the building’s life, as well as possessing a warmth and level of detailing which reflects the human scale of the building.

Sustainable design principles

The layout of the apartments makes use of passive sustainable design principles with an aim to maximise access to northern light and cross-ventilation. To this end, an arrangement of two separate common lift/stair lobbies has been adopted.

This allows all apartments to achieve direct outlook to distant views, with the majority of apartments achieving a dual-aspect frontage. North light access is maximised, while all apartments are opened up to stunning views of the heritage-listed Surrey Gardens to the south.

Integrated with the landscape

As part of the architectural response to the subject site, the balcony zone acts as a transitional space between the internal spaces and the parkland to the south. The use of climbing plants and integrated planter allows the façades to read as a natural part of the landscape.