Why landscaping apartments is worth it

By Alex Brooks

In highrise Chatswood just near the railway line, Mirvac’s 23-storeyAltura apartment block has an unusual feeling of tranquillity.

Altura has a meditative waterfall courtyard, a gymnasium that overlooks the cascading waterfall, impeccably groomed grassed areas, an inviting blue swimming pool and a row of palm trees to create a peaceful Asian-style outdoor area.

HPA Architects design director Malcolm Sholl, who oversaw the design of Altura for Mirvac, says landscaping can be the key to creating an enlivening living environment in dense, built-up areas.

“Good landscaping offers a view to the apartments on the lower floors and it can also create solar access if you choose the right plantings,” he says.

“If you can give private landscaped spaces to apartments, that’s also beneficial.”

He says apartments have come a long way from their days as dull highrise boxes with concrete carparks as landscape.

“The bar has been raised in apartments generally – the kitchens, bathrooms and outdoor living spaces are all better in apartments than they used to be,” he says.

“People are expecting more and want an emphasis on privacy and landscaped spaces.”

Tropical holiday destinations like Thailand and Bali have influenced apartment landscaping styles, with a trend to re-creating resort-like facilities to offer a feeling of escape from city life.

“Space is so precious around apartments, and if you can create a simple, elegant water feature then you can enrich that space,” Sholl says.

“Mirvac sees landscaping as so important that when we did the 17 houses in Walsh Bay, we had a landscape architect individually design each courtyard space.”

Austruc Constructions – who built the award-winning The Addison in Manly – agree that landscaping is crucial to creating attractive boutique apartment blocks.

Austruc’s project manager Graham Fenwick says the six-apartment Manly complex has been architecturally designed with strong external detailing and particular attention to landscaping.

“The landscaping is partly to make it feel more like a house than an apartment so you get something that’s a cross between a house and a resort feeling,” he says.

Austruc spent around five per cent of the total building budget on landscaping and spent a great deal of time specifying the details.

“I would say this type of apartment building takes 25 to 30 per cent longer to detail and get right than your standard apartment building,” he says.

“The architect and I took a long time to choose the landscaper and check the plantings.”

The Addison is on a tree-lined street in Manly with older-style buildings and the architect was briefed to create a modern building that would blend with the street.

“The landscaping is very important in that street – if we did something bare and barren it would absolutely spoil the streetscape,” he says.

Fenwick says it was critical to choose hardy plantings that would grow quickly and tolerate the south-easterly aspect and coastal location.

“The landscaping looks like it’s been there for 10 years and it’s less than two years old – it’s very lush and green and a few palms give it that coastal feel,” he says.