Elevated Retreat – The Isles by SJB
Straddling both its mixed ocean and city positioning, The Isles sees a series of nine apartments take the form of a consolidated home, each elevated through a commitment to quality and luxury. SJB responds to the surrounding muted and sand-toned inspiration of its context, proposing a balance of smooth and textural elements.
Overlooking the waterfront, The Isles brings together a sense of elevated lifestyle within the convenience of the apartment living typology, all within its medium scale outer shell. Unlike other and more familiar development offerings, the goal was to create a series of interlocking homes that captured the spirit of the surrounding location and matched the grandeur of a prominent home. With the building sitting between both coastal and urban settings, the apartments take inspiration from both – the result sees SJB propose a collective of homes boasting a lasting relevance, focusing on craft at their core.
Sculpting its own definition of coastal refinement, The Isles were developed and built by Made Property and born from a close collaboration between allied disciplines. Combining a soft and neutral palette throughout, the base of each home allows for personalisation by the owners, whilst still retaining a sense of cohesion across the building. A mixture of curved and linear elements shares the site, seeing lofted internal ceiling heights expand the perceived feeling of scale from within. Allowing and encouraging natural light to illuminate the interior, views are framed out towards the nearby ocean, whilst the weight of the structure’s masonry elements firmly ground the architecture in place, softened by landscape design by Dangar Barin Smith, blurring the edges of the site.
Spread over multiple levels, each home connects outward in different ways. The ground floor connects to the gardens and nearby harbour, whilst the middle and upper levels and their respective views allow for a more expanded and distant view outward. Comprising of nine residences in total, the building is topped by a single floor penthouse with both city and water views in differing directions, maximising each outlook. The homes on the lower levels share their three bedrooms with an openly connected floor plan of living, dining, and kitchen spaces, dotted with a curation of specialised architectural and decorative lighting to elevate the everyday.
Drawing from a soft and calming selection of finishes, The Isles echoes the feeling of vacation and being by the water. SJB has captured an effortless cool, ensuring a base of quality elements will allow the homes to remain timeless and age gracefully.
