Arkadia Apartments

From the designers: ”Located in Sydney’s inner-city suburb of Alexandria, the Arkadia apartment development offers a compelling model for high-density urban living, while reflecting the character of its surroundings.

“As landscape architects for the project, Oculus provided design and documentation services for the public and private domain, including an integrated ground plane (Huntley Green public park), through-site links, a series of courtyard gardens and atriums, a communal edible garden and expansive rooftop terrace.

“The project’s design partners believed that the development should contribute positively to its neighborhood. The design for Arkadia enhances its location by providing new connections through the site that link the open space of Sydney Park to the fine-grained, close-knit community of Alexandria. The Huntley Street pocket park invites the neighbouring community in, offering shade from new and retained street trees and site-specific public artwork.

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Oculus designed the landscape for the Arkadia Apartments.

Image: Tom Ross

“Communal garden spaces and productive garden plots, gardens sheds and a shared chicken coop encourage socialization among neighbours. Residents can observe their vegetables and herbs grow and their eggs laid daily on their rooftops, bringing them into contact with the processes of food production. The lateral and vertical integration of productive landscape spaces offers a unique opportunity to establish relationships and foster a strong sense of community – a rare quality in most inner-city apartment developments.

“The project advocates the use of high-quality, durable and environmentally sensitive materials. The use of recycled brick throughout the building aesthetically ties the architecture to the landscape, reduces environmental impacts through low-embodied energy, while marking the site’s history as a place of brick manufacturing. Greater-than-minimum soil depths enable a landscape that exceeds the performance and immersive nature of a typical multi-residential garden.

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Oculus designed the landscape for the Arkadia Apartments.

Image: Tom Ross

“The quality of planting is integral to both the resident’s lifestyle and health. The rooftop planting incorporates a wide range of flowering plants, with at least one species in flower per season. A holistic approach to biodiversity elevates the landscape spaces beyond places for passive human occupation, catering to a whole host of non-human stakeholders. Green waste management forms part of this lifecycle with composting used as a sustainable response to waste. Composting of green waste reduces the overall waste produced by the building and provides valuable compost to improve the long-term quality of planter box soils. Food waste can also be directed to the resident chickens.

“The Arkadia project sets new benchmarks in how a multi-residential project can foster community, social interaction and neighbourhood integration through a collaborative design process.”