Circular windows — generally the purview of ship hulls and restaurant kitchen doors — have made a surprising domestic appearance in the Cirqua Apartments in Melbourne. It’s a reinterpretation of the typical local apartment housing block, and holds 44 units in a suburb of Melbourne.
The builders, BKK Architects, decided to stack six large cubes (each with their own giant, circular window) to connect the homes with the surrounding gardens as much as possible. And while the cumulative effect looks an awful lot like a pile of junked washing machines, the design allows for huge swaths of natural light, and that’s something any tenant can get behind.
Inside, pristine. Hardware details and modern materials tether the fanciful design into a highly liveable space, despite the audacious exterior. A perusal of the firm’s portfolio shows a willingness to experiment that’s fresh in a design scene somehow still smitten with Nordic minimalism (no offense), and this apartment makes fo a solid, albeit niche, innovation in mass housing.
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