With a focus on community, history and sustainability, Arkadia from Defence Housing Australia (DHA) truly does achieve its promise to deliver more in Alexandria.
In association with Breathe Architecture and DKO Architecture, everything about Arkadia has been designed with the environment in mind. From bikes in the basement, to a chook run on the roof for fresh eggs, every aspect of this beautiful project has been carefully considered with greener living and community in mind.
“Half of the development has been ear-marked to provide housing for Defence members and their families,” explains Koos de Keijzer, principal and founding partner of DKO.
“So straight away what you get is a developer who had a huge vested interest in the lifestyle, environmental impact and the running of the building itself.
“Things like apartment amenity, sunlight, ventilation suddenly become really important.”
This respect to the environment begins with the building’s brickwork, which pays tribute to the area’s local brickyard legacy.
“On Sydney Park Road and on Huntley Street there used to be a dozen brickworks a hundred years ago, so it was a very manufacturing-driven part of the city,” Mr de Keijzer adds.
“A big part of our architectural sustainability story was to actually build the structure out of recycled bricks. Roughly 400,000 bricks were used in construction and we spent a lot of time and care sourcing these”.
“The striking façade give’s Arkadia a sense of permanence straight away. It doesn’t have that ‘newness’ and it has a warm authenticity about it. I love the fact that we’ve designed a building that looks great today, but will also look great in ten years’ time.”
The project also has community in mind, with an aim to make each and every occupant’s life easier and more fulfilled with the use of open spaces.
“Part of the design process was to create a neighbourhood park at the centre of the development, backing onto Huntley Street.
“We also mitigated the scale of the buildings with a number of public pedestrian routes that take you through to the park, effectively creating a series of smaller buildings as part of the overall structure.
“We have 152 apartments that are broken up into four cores. Each core has 38 apartments and every floor has only three or four apartments.
“Every core also has its own private open area, rooftop space and veggie garden, so there’s quite a strong play towards social sustainability and trying to encourage a public realm within Arkadia.”
Residents can also revel in a building that has a passive energy design. This means the spaces and surfaces maximise Mother Nature’s warming and cooling capabilities — so you’re more comfortable year-round.
Not only this, but Arkadia comes with onsite rainwater collection and solar panels, keeping water and energy costs down for future generations.
“We were innately interested in the whole concept of practical sustainability. For example, I think a lot of people are sick of having to use their air conditioning all the time. The science also tells us that people like airflow across the body, so things like natural ventilation throughout the build is strongly related to liveability and very important to us.”
One of the biggest stand-out features of Arkadia is found on the rooftop — another fantastic example of every element of the build being put to practical, social and sustainable use.
“Our most profound challenge was creating spaces where people would chat with one another. The idea behind the farm-to-home concept and the veggie gardens and chook run, is that social interaction would increase, and the stats say it works”.
These spaces also come with bbq facilities and sweeping vistas back across the Sydney skyline. Although many developments come with similar amenities, most of them don’t come with this much social sustainability at its heart.
Enquire here to read more about the range of apartments available at Arkadia.
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