Duke Apartments

2003 – 05

10 Storey Apartment Building behind a heritage facade.

The site for this building includes a heritage-listed hotel built in 1850, which has been operating as a pub since 1853, making it the oldest – and longest – licensed pub in Melbourne. The new ten-storey apartment building sits behind the existing buildings in what was once the service yard. Access to the new building is through the 1880 warehouse on Flinders Street. The floor plate is small with four apartments per floor: each floor of the south apartments cantilevers 4.5 metres over the existing warehouse building; the west apartments, which face Russell Street, are facaded in a rippled curtain wall that also encloses the balconies. A roof garden and plant area is pergola-like in the same form. The first floor of the new building has been incorporated into an atrium-like space for use by the pub, which allows patrons to experience the rear of the heritage buildings and glimpse the tower of the Forum Theatre located opposite on Russell Street.