mont albert townhouses

358 mont albert road, mont albert

An old bank and manager's residence, dating back to the 1930's has been rebuilt as two town houses with another two new terraces built on the same block.

These are not designed to the normal traditional style of Mont Albert, rather they assert themselves into the suburb, with deep ochre and clay colors, strong sharp modern lines and - concealed behind solid screens - a number of glass and aluminium curtain walls, just like a commercial Modern building.

In terms of architectural lineage, there are echoes of Barragan in Mexico, Mies' curtain walls in Chicago and the delicacy of a Japanese courtyard. These are elements of the Modern Australian architectural world.

This is architecture of the senses - when   colors, shades, forms, textures and shapes amalgamate as a sensory experience.

Each building has undercover, secure garages, private gardens, upper decks with views across the trees of Mont Albert, separate private entries and is fully carpeted and fitted out with all necessary equipment (including dishwasher, oven + hot plate, exhaust flue, heaters, telephone wiring, gates intercom system, stone tops and wine bottle racks).

From inside, the houses are thoroughly contemporary, fitted with high level devices - stainless steel fittings, stone bench tops, Italian tiles and woolen carpets. Large opening glass walls spread the internal spaces outside to the gardens.

The original architecture of the bank has generated the ideas for the new development, where brick screen wall and "leftover" elements of the old building are retained and a n "old"   screen wall adopted for the new houses.

As a result the project is imbued with a history, like an old European village where walls and roofs and paths meander over the site which is scattered with private gardens and pebble courtyards. Walls have been colored with a high level applied finish (more durable than ordinary paint) which contributes to the freshness of the buildings and helps distinguish between the four houses and their individual wall and fences.

These are contemporary buildings, not nostalgic, offering a built-in memory of a previous architecture and a fresh use for that tradition.

Norman Day Melbourne