Uniting Epping

Based on the Humanitas model of care, which seeks to achieve the wellbeing of residents through community integration and active lifestyle, the design concept for 43 Oxford street celebrates community interaction spaces. A strong connection to the immediate community is encouraged at ground level through the provision of uses to activate the street interface.

At tower levels in a semi-private environment, sky gardens are envisaged to foster communal interaction of the residents and extended families. To complement the communal open space at ground level is a rooftop terrace, which explores biophilic design opportunities, will allow for increased outdoor amenity, harnessing solar access to provide passive recreation. 

Architectural design elements are drawn from the surrounding environmental and typological queues together with cultural references of the Archetypical Australian suburb. At ground level, the design language reminisces the typical dairy shop characteristic of Australian suburbia. Distinct architectural form to Oxford street façade acts as a solar collector through the provision of bay windows reminiscent of typical Australian homes. Pocket parks found scattered through the locality are celebrated in the rooftop terrace. Epping’s characteristic tree-lined streets provide a threshold between public and private space, these are re-imagined in the communal terraces at ILU levels as a green spine of sky gardens. Borrowing the predominant colour palette of Epping’s roofscape, mixing with green to celebrate the retained trees, tones of terracotta are evident in the articulation of the building façades.