| | Architecture, we are reminded, does not exist in a void. It makes profit or loss, it produces energy, it casts shadows, it holds and organises communities. It’s surrounded by a web of decision making that can make or break a well meaning plan or rendering, dumb it down, cut corners, increase densities.
The design of Oasis Stage 1 by Williams Boag suffered a web more tangled than usual. Yet the development, a brownfields transformation in central St Kilda, has managed to survive with its original values intact: passive and active environmental mechanisms, fully integrated social housing (unprecedented), a well-funded arts component and generous new public spaces. It represents the first use of grey water and storm water for irrigation and toilet flushing in an Australian high density development. And while it is, indeed, high density, it’s been achieved without high rise towers and with most of the site fully landscaped. The strange, shimmering purity of Oasis has gained it wide admiration and a steady stream of awards, both national and international.
The project owes its existence to the City of Port Phillip’s decision not to sell off a surplus 1.23 hectare municipal depot site for a quick high rise buck. Instead, with some considerable risk, the Council cleaned and developed the site itself in partnership with a private developer, imposing a series of “Key Deliverables” required to satisfy the conditions of the contract of sale.
The major step towards their satisfaction was effective site planning and modelling. The buildings, covering less than 40% of the site, were laid out mostly along an east-west axis, set back and separated by courtyards and two public thoroughfares that open up the site for the first time. The economically planned grouping of units prevents overshadowing, and gives the majority of apartments northern balconies and northern sun.
The architects undertook careful modelling of the site topography and prevailing winds, positioning and opening the buildings to circulating air movements. Unit layouts were designed to allow air to enter through dedicated façade openings, and exit the units out into the open corridor areas via louvred panels above the entrance door. Ventilation stacks located off the corridors in the building core allow both the communal areas and the units to breathe naturally. Openings along all sides of the sub-grade carpark, and voids in the podium above, create airflow through the building’s underbelly. Enough natural light penetrates here to plant shrubs and trees in basement gardens.
At points of entry, some detailed design work has taken place: façade seals minimising uncontrolled infiltration; a system of projecting external sunshades; ceramic tiled floor-strips before the north-facing windows to passively store heat. The buildings utilise fully insulated heavy mass construction, with internal walls of exposed precast concrete.
Two blocks either side of Acland Street and St Kilda Road, Oasis was treated as useable urban space within a mixed residential and commercial area. Long views were carved through the site. At its centre, the “Destructor” building - a piece of modernist heritage that once functioned as the depot’s incinerator - was adaptively reused for housing, and is now publicly accessible. Landscaped podia, with courtyards for communal green space, cluster around the apartment blocks; to the south, the thoroughfare cuts through a planted wetland. The wetland collects first flush on-site stormwater, and continuously recycles bathroom sourced wastewater for toilet flushing and landscape irrigation. The final treatment of the reclaimed water is by microfiltration.
With its wetlands, Oasis goes about as far towards sustainable water use as site constraints and approval conditions would permit. Storage and treatment locations were limited because of existing heritage building forms, sewer mains and the potential for flooding. Preventing potential contamination required careful design with backflow prevention devices. But pushed by the City of Port Phillip, and aided by an Environment Australia Grant matched by Inkerman Developments, Williams Boag alongside Integrated Eco Villages were able to slot the system seamlessly into the dense building fabric.
In the end, there’s nothing miraculous about the process that built Oasis: standards were mandated, public money laid the foundations, and a fine architectural practice provided the substance. The development, which will eventually hold 236 apartments and 32 social housing units, is still ongoing. Top. Facade articulation, north side, Building F. Second. Apartment interior within the recycled Destructor building Third. Interior upper level, Building F, looking north Bottom. The site plan shows the relationship of open spaces Photographer: Tony Miller |
