Knox Schlapp

KNOX SCHLAPP

MELBOURNE VIC | 1985

Peter Elliot Architecture and Urban Design for Victorian Ministry of Housing Infill program

From the 1970s, there was a new energy from all levels of government to stimulate precinct renewal via public housing development in inner-city areas. Growing appreciation of built heritage, as exemplified by the Berlin IBA, prompted a shift in renewal approach, with the end of slum clearance programs and recognition of the importance of urban integration and diversity in the built environment.

This period of public housing projects in Australia pioneered contextually sensitive infill projects, with the designs referencing surrounding buildings. Larger schemes were awarded to multiple established and emerging architectural practices for greater built form diversity. Emphasis was placed on creating housing on a more human scale and of a high quality as it was felt this would better integrate residents and help remove the stigma associated with public housing developments.

Knox Schlapp is an exemplar project of these ambitions in the Victorian Ministry of Housing’s Infill Program. The project experiments with a ‘perimeter block’ layout, building to the site boundary and incorporating a semi-private internal courtyard to improve dwelling liveability while maintaining the former warehouse urban fabric. Building height varies across the project, with townhouses at the side matching the adjacent single-storey, narrower streetscape. These read as related but individual homes due to the separate front doors, compact but personalised front gardens
and stepping up and down of the building mass to indicate those homes with more bedrooms. Flats are located above the taller, entrance building.