Cirqua Apartments [Reproduction]

Cirqua creates a new living environment for East Ivanhoe, providing a strong sense of address for tenants whilst maintaining a street rhythm and scale that stitches the project into its context. The dwellings were conceived of ‘homes’ rather than ‘product’ resulting in larger apartments, diversity of type, large balconies and generous landscaping. In addition, Cirqua is designed to carefully consider accessibility and passive environmental performance with all apartments’ bedrooms and living areas having direct access to natural light and ventilation. Generous glazing maximises connections to the surrounding garden, with significant landscaping integrated into the design, capturing the ‘Garden City’ essence of Ivanhoe. Through careful analysis of the existing context, the building design draws on the materiality and expression of local, historical housing types and reinterprets them in a contemporary manner. Similarly, the building facades are highly articulated to reduce the overall building’s mass and present a smaller scale development to the street.