Havelock House

Project idea

This project was based around Havelock house on Northbourne, Canberra. We were tasked with designing a building around the existing site and building to densify the site, increasing the total number of accommodation’s for both short and long term residents. Along with this we needed to incorporate community facilities and retail spaces.

Project description

My approach with this project was to keep the idea of community through the use of courtyards from the original building while only retaining the dining hall as a separate restaurant space for afternoon and nighttime activation of the site. This accompanied with the retail spaces and the public recessed courtyard, the space was also activated during the day. The intention behind this was inciting opportunity for the residents to interact with the public and break down the stigma around social housing without forcing interaction. This is achieved through the threshold between their residential area raised overlooking the public space giving them the feeling of power in the situation.

Technical information

The other main feature of the building is the long hallways allowing the separation of certain groups but prohibiting isolation. I designed this to continue to reinforce the idea of community without again forcing interaction. The tower contains the long stay apartments in a more quiet and personal space with individual and community balcony’s overlooking the rest of the site.