A Refined Elevation – Habitus Townhomes by DKO
Founded on principles of restraint and a heightened lived experience, Habitus Townhomes bring together a considered quality and detail in every gesture. DKO, together with developer Beulah International, propose a series of integrated residences embedded with warmth and balanced calm.
As a contributor to the growing medium density housing in South Melbourne, Habitus Townhomes insert themselves through an attuned attention to detail. Behind a rhythmic façade of long stretching vertical bands, the homes all interlock, ensuring uninterrupted visual sightlines from within while also provided a level of protection from the sun and privacy from street level. The equally proportioned homes break up an overall form through a matched warmth that is expressed internally, wrapping the homes and encasing them in a binding of materiality and textures. As a collaboration between developer Beulah International and architect and interior design studio DKO, the team create a lasting imprint in place, both in the building’s enduring relevance and the longevity of its parts.
Built by Ironside Construction, together with landscape architecture by John Patrick Landscape Architects, Habitus Townhomes are a nod to the area’s industrial past. The inserted natural garden elements sit as a buffer between the built and the more organic pieces, softening an otherwise hard edge. The roofline resembles the traditional and familiar saw-tooth style of a warehouse form, responding to the surrounding context and the history of the area of Emerald Hill. Over its five levels, 25 apartments interlock behind the measured and repeated façade and open through a generous and shared expression of their interior volumes.
Wrapped in bronze aluminium, brickwork and precast concrete, the form sits weighted in place, with its glass insertions offering a relief from the heavy masonry elements. This burnished and textured warmth is then brought internally also, but then refined through a contemporary reinterpretation of permanency. The combined use of timber and stone in a monolithic manner sees long spans and sculptural slabs define the spaces and sit harmoniously amongst the inviting spaces of the home. While sitting in proximity to the coast, there is a very urban sensibility ingrained into each of these homes, reinforcing a typified Melbourne aesthetic and one that feels like an open embrace once inside.
