Amitha (Amy) Atmadja

Brick Co-House is a project based in Bendigo. The theme for the project is to showcase how co-housing project can be used to preserve the qualities of heritage sites through materiality, while also creating a sense of community and liveability between the diverse occupants and changing demographics of Bendigo.

This masterplan proposal is designed to ensure easy circulation for all users (pedestrians, bike, and car) and promote equality for all the inhabitants by providing equal views towards Lake Weeroona Park & Bendigo Creek, across all the buildings. The masterplan also includes a wider walking pathway, with nature spread across the site & buildings, to adhere to the wide biking community in Bendigo and also to ensure the site is surrounded by nature for healthy living purposes.

The apartment block is designed with most of the mainly used shared facilities on the ground floor, while its residencies located on the upper part of the building. The reason for this design approach is because the entrance to the building can only be accessed on the ground floor, therefore by having wide open public spaces allocated on both entry points of the apartment, this would allow higher chances for the residents to encounter each other and therefore encourage more communication for the users.

All the shared facilities are designed with a open concept in mind, to ensure good lighting, access to nature, and to allow inhabitants to be able to see each other (from indoor to outdoor or otherwise). A community food garden is also included to further encourage interaction between the inhabitants, while also providing an opportunity for creating a sense of community with the residents.

The materials of all of the apartment blocks are extracted from the past Bendigo Gasworks Site, where it used materials such as Bricks, Steel, and Concrete in creating the building. Therefore the project is aimed to highlight these materials in order to keep the past histories of the site, and to showcase how these materials are still embedded on site, even though new buildings have been created.

The rendered view, provide an insight on how the mainly used materials of bricks and steel are being used across all the buildings, therefore creating moments where the inhabitants are able to interact with the materials and be reminded of the past histories of the site.