Arkadia is a residential project in Sydney’s Alexandria that demonstrates the principles of community and sustainability. Four interconnected buildings spanning 5,590 square metres have been designed by Breathe Architecture, DKO and Oculus to provide homes for 152 families, with 85 of these apartments allocated to defence personnel and their families.
The first step for the design team was to research the site of the development, and the nearly half a million recycled bricks used in the project pay homage to the clay quarries and brick factories that stood here in centuries past.
The team also interviewed locals about what they love about this part of Sydney, which is sandwiched between the small village of Erskineville to the north and the grounds of Sydney Park and highway to the south. “Through resident interviews we heard the hopes and worries of the existing community,” reads the Breathe Architecture Design Statement. “They wanted protection – physically and acoustically – from the busy traffic to the south, and more open space to the north.”
In response to this community consultation, the design team created a protective wall that faces Sydney Park Road and a more porous design to the north, which invites the community in via a sunlit park protected from the noise and wind.
Each of Arkadia’s four building has its own space for residents to come together, its own productive garden, its own lift lobby, its own address and its own community. They share a rooftop and open out to the north to embrace a new park to share with the residents of Huntley Street beyond.
As well as recycled brick, the project features recycled hardwood timber floors, low VOC finishes, solar panels on the rooftop and drought-tolerant indigenous planting on terraces and communal gardens.
Careful attention has also been paid to thermal performance. The brick skin is articulated with deep reveals and solar shading to the north and west, the window openings are punched into the facade and right sized to allow cross ventilation but not summer sun penetration.
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