Glenarm Square

CLIENT | DealCorp

TYPE | Architecture, Documentation

SECTOR | Mixed Use, Residential, Retail, Hospitality

STATUS | CompleteD (2022)

LOCATION | Glen Iris, VIC

HEIGHT | 27 m, 8 Storeys

SCALE | GFA: 20,017 sqm, Site 2,700 sqm, 119 apartments

COST | $40M

Collaboration | Hecker Guthrie

Photography | Image Factory

AWARDS | 2023 UDIA VIC Awards for Excellence - Apartments (Mid Rise) - Shortlisted

The Residences Glenarm Square is a pioneering new development adjacent to the new level crossing removal at Gardiner Railway Station.

Situated on a natural rise, Glenarm is a highly visible addition to Glen Iris’s urban landscape. Its confident form appears as two adjoined volumes, internally connected via shared lifts and lobby spaces.

A prominently civic corner greets the station and busy main road, while its recognisably residential apartment block sits toward the quieter street side. At this more domestic frontage, a brick exterior gives a familiar domestic materiality in step with neighbouring homes, and walk-up apartments from the 70s and 80s. Balconies here are open to the street, with a minimart planned at ground level to service residents and further encourage neighbourly village encounters.

Created with deep consideration for its specific location, this is a building designed to be seen. Clad in carefully sculpted fins, with straight front edges hollowed out to the rear, the skin on Glenarm’s more public-facing corner seems to warp and shift on approach from the north – creating a dynamic strobing, known as a moiré effect, activated only by the relative movement of the viewer.

Functional as well as expressive, these fins provide strategic solar shading and privacy on an exposed corner and make delightfully experiential architecture immediately accessible to the community at large. This neat gesture emphasises Glenarm’s significance as a project tied to forward momentum in transport.

Glenarm’s two lower floors comprise 1000 square metres of retail and commercial space, establishing a new village square; a destination to attract curious locals. Outside, engaging communal amenities are clustered around a north-facing plaza, with co-working offices in proximity to shops, a café and a large health and fitness studio offering a new meeting point for residents and passing commuters alike.

This public realm is softened through lush native landscaping, with the building’s generous undercrofts and garden paths dispersing pedestrian traffic from the adjacent station, encouraging incidental interaction at ground level. Visitors to the apartments enter through a luxe and inviting lobby area.

Containing 119 apartments in one, two and three-bedroom configurations, Glenarm aims to introduce greater housing diversity to a growing area. Elegantly simple, refined interiors detailed in either a warm or cool tone palette, feature European floorboards, stone and timber surfaces throughout. Efficiently planned with ample natural light and ventilation through full-height sliding doors, these units cater to a range of living requirements, appealing to a broad demographic range of young professionals, small families and active downsizers.

Being well-serviced by public transport, Glenarm provides bike space to tenants looking to reduce car usage and promote a healthier, more eco-conscious lifestyle. Other sustainably driven measures applied throughout include smart rainwater harvesting technology, with integrated renewable energy and double glazing on all windows. Along with clever site orientation, shading and passive thermal management, Glenarm achieves an exemplary 6-star NatHERS energy rating.