Balfe Park Lane

Balfe Park Lane report summary

Design

Kerstin Thompson Architects are widely regarded as one of the best architecture practices in the country. They have a long list of highly awarded civic, residential and commercial projects. Whilst an apartment building of this scale will not have a highly detailed level of finish as their single residential client work, the ‘big picture’ elements of this project are very deliberate and carefully executed.

The development is large, however, is sliced into 4 smaller buildings, giving each its own sense of community and place. 

Location & neighbouring developments

This section of Nicholson street in Brunswick East has rapidly changed over the last 5 years and will continue to see a high level of multi-resi-
dential development take place. Most of these will have the same height limit as Balfe Park Lane, 6-7 stories.

The most significant neighbour-ing development is East Brunswick Village to the north of Glenlyon road, which will transform the area.

This is proposed to have significant ground floor amenity available to the entire community (supermarket etc). Whilst each existing warehouse is transformed into much-needed housing, the lack of access to public green space becomes a significant issue in areas like Brunswick. This is what makes this particular development so unique, the proximity to Balfe Park, and the certainty that no future development can impact or change this.


Transport

Access to the 96 tram at the front of the building is incredibly convenient and important. Nicholson Street is somewhat removed from a train
line, with Merri station 1.6km to the east, or Jewell station 2.3km to the west. This site sits only 700m north of the park street bike path, which has connections to other bike paths across the city.