Melbourne Design

Collingwood’s creative energy has a new HQ with the recent completion of Oxley, a celebration of the neighbourhood’s unique energy and diversity. Another collaboration with Tim Gurner and Urban Inc, Oxley is woven into the existing urban fabric of the post-industrial area, as a series of four villa-like buildings and 75 different apartment typologies connected by a network of laneways and courtyards beneath.    Like any neighbourhood known as an incubator for music, art and culture, Collingwood is no stranger to vice. The Oxley photoshoot explores the culmination or genesis of creative life (depending on your point of view) – the party – taking inspiration from one of our favourite extravagant scenes from... More

Masterchef luminary Adriano Zumbo’s first Melbourne patisserie needed to be something that stood out from the pack – and that’s where we came in. Taken on as our second annual ‘Graduate School’ program, a team of junior architects and designers were given free reign on the front of house fitout for the patisserie wunderkind. The brief was simple – stay true to the Zumbo brand and use a bit of pink – so the design team took matters into their own hands. They expanded the response to include the graphic design for signage and lighting as well as custom-designed furniture, creating a delectable fantasy world with a slightly kinky twist – classic Zumbo and classic Elenberg Fraser.    T... More

Melbourne has a thing with axes – how often have you glanced down one of the mains arteries of the city and realized it perfectly frames a civic monument? Taking inspiration from that axial idea, this tall residential tower, positioned above the intersection of the off-set Hoddle and Carlton grids, echoes this geometric tension in its facetted planes that stretch up into the sky.Intersecting vertical fingers of descending pink and rising green glass, separated by a dividing silver hue, create a shimmering dichroic effect through the height of the façade. Inspired by the ambiguity of Escher, this creates a dramatic vertical transition evocative of the transition of solid, through liquid to vapour.Facing Victoria Street, a three-... More

Nestled in a diverse neighbourhood pocket in Albert Park, the original building was a dilapidated double-fronted Victorian house book-ended by a double-storey terrace house on its south side. The house is located on a corner allotment that is pinched in by the main street and a laneway which gives it its irregular, triangular "pizza" shape that tapers towards the rear. As a heritage listed building, it was imperative to rescue the front of house which was in a severe state of disrepair. The homeowner and his family of 4 presented us a brief that started off with the basic functional premise of maintaining a 3-bedroom house at the very minimum, and making use of the neighbour's double-height boundary wall to introduce a second storey vo... More