Wood Marsh’s Balencea apartments in St. Kilda Road Melbourne were recently awarded the 2009 Victorian Architecture Awards’ ‘Multiple Housing Architecture Award’. The building employs large interlocking concave arcs to make up its faÁade, meaning that no whole elevation can be viewed at once.

This unusual design aims to engage with its busy inner-city location, with a sculptural form and limited palette that references the nearby National Gallery of Victoria, Shrine of Remembrance and the Victoria Barracks.

“Balencea’s design language is primarily derived from the exploration of ideas of repetition, surface, extrusion and how buildings, when seen in perspective can both conceal and reveal themselves,” say the architects.

With the black glass ‘curtain’ of the facetted faÁade, the 84 apartments over 23 storeys ‘float’ over retail space, a restaurant and terraced outdoor space.  

Wood Marsh believes strongly in creating ‘architectural form in-the-round’ by exploring sculptural form. With slender elevations to the east and west, Balencea offers a dynamic, intriguing aesthetic. The building is also designed to achieve an average 5-star energy rating, through choice of materials and finishes and energy efficient heating and cooling initiatives.

woodmarsh.com.au