Project Overview

Tate presents eight curated homes in Kew’s exclusive Sackville Ward, brought to you by ANGLE in collaboration with leading design firms Cera Stribley Architects and Eckersley Gardens, along with market leading European appliances from Gaggenau and custom-designed wardrobes from furniture pioneer Poliform.

Unlike many other multi-residential projects in Melbourne, both the architecture and interiors were designed by Cera Stribley. Now complete, walking through the built product it is clearly noticeable the sense of harmony between interior moments and the building structure.

The eight dwellings were aimed at owner occupiers not investors and each home was designed to be large enough for a family. Unique to more traditional townhouses, Tate is a more dense and vertical form of housing with most dwellings covering less than 100sqm of land. However, through creative solutions, Cera Stribley has found ways to make the houses large enough for families to live in with whole floors dedicated to master suites, middle floors encompassing a ‘kids level’, with a separate living & study area directly adjacent to two bedrooms, and vast amounts of storage throughout.

Cera Stribley has done numerous homes and multi-residential projects within the suburb of Kew and know it intimately. Sarah, the lead interior designer, recognises the suburb as an area of elegance and permanence; and these qualities were reflected within the interiors of Tate’s residences with the timeless palette and refined choice of fixtures and finishes.

Organisation

Angle

Project Brief

The brief to Cera Stribley was to design dwellings that were homes, not investments, and large enough to raise a family. During the design phase, together with Cera Stribley Architects, we workshopped ideas to give each dwelling a sense of home and a place that a young family could live.

The homes provide well thought out storage including; butlers pantries, outdoor storage, extensive Poliform walk-in robes to the master bedroom and proper walk-in laundries instead of euro laundries more commonly used in multi residential developments. The sense of home was also achieved through beautiful natural textures within the homes, notably the extensive marble in the kitchen and bathrooms. The residences also have a welcoming energy with quite a lot of diffused light – elements within the kitchen and bathroom are also highlighted through carefully placed LED lighting, which is greatly helpful, especially at night. While unusually vertical compared to other townhouse developments in Kew, lifts were designed for each townhouse to make them more practical homes, especially given the master suites are located on the top floor of each dwelling.

Project Innovation/Need

A key focus for Tate, and unparalleled in the realm of multi residential development, is creating the sense of a single dwelling in a multi residential context.

A 3m tall copper door, utilising a FritzJurgen pivot system, creates a grand statement for residents and a talking point for guests. As you enter the ground floor of each residence, a staircase wraps around the lift, which creates a double height void with windows that allow even more natural light to travel into the internal spaces.

All of the homes have 3m ceilings, which is super unusual in a multi-residential context and more accustomed to heritage houses in the immediate area.

Cera Stribley designed custom joinery pieces unique to these eight homes. This included a dressing table in master bedrooms, day beds and entertainment units with sliding panels. The team also curated a unique selection of fixtures and fittings from around the world, with Archier pendant lights from Tasmania, Poliform robes from Italy, Gaggenau appliances from Germany, Workstead lights from New York.

Design Challenge

While both the architecture and interiors were designed by Cera Stribley, a key design challenge was to unify the design between the two disciplines.

Tate’s architecture draws inspiration from Kew’s Edwardian, angular roof forms. These angular formations bring a dynamic energy not only to the facade, but to the internal spaces of the homes.

The interiors team leveraged off the chamfers of the brick facade and chose materials with this same profile. Some examples of this include the fluted tiles in the powder rooms, reeded glass with a ribbed detail to assist with privacy from neighbouring houses and an option for residents to also choose reeded glass with a ribbed detail and brass surrounds in the kitchen and living joinery.

The reeded glass to meet the statutory privacy/overlooking requirement was a more considered option put forward by the interiors team, rather than the more conventional approach of frosted glass which would have had no link to the architecture.

Sustainability

Ensuring we met and exceeded sustainability requirements was at the forefront of our minds during Tate’s conception. Some of the measures we have incorporated include high performance thermal envelopes with concrete slabs, high efficiency LED artificial lighting throughout, motion detector controlled lighting in common areas and water efficient fixtures. All of the development’s living and bedroom areas are naturally cross ventilated with windows on opposite or adjacent facades. Water is also collected from the upper roof, and is directed to the 12kL rainwater tank connected to all townhouse toilets and landscape irrigation. Additionally, Tate has a walk Score of 72 and is a three minute walk from the 109 tram which travels from Port Melbourne to Box Hill.