Elwood House, a luxury apartment development located in Elwood Village, Victoria is a collaboration between the developers, Piccolo Developments, Woods Bagot (external façade) and Hecker Guthrie (internal design).

Located on the corner of Pine Avenue and Ormond Road, Elwood House boasts a magnificent tiered façade featuring a carefully chosen materials palette of handmade Petersen bricks, exquisite off form concrete, metal and stone, along with irrigated balcony planter boxes overflowing with greenery. Offering 30 luxury apartments over four storeys, the project meets the design brief to ‘take the outside in’ perfectly.

Given that all the apartments were sold off prior to construction, the pressure was on the developer to deliver to the buyers’ high expectations. Piccolo Director Michael Piccolo underlined the importance of getting the details right since every single element had a bearing on the owners’ satisfaction.

With a combination of natural textures adorning the façade and the interiors alike, one of the biggest challenges in building Elwood House lay in material selection that would deliver on these expectations of detail.

Choosing bricks, a key design feature of the façade, was an easy task with Petersen bricks from Robertson's Building Products Pty Ltd instantly hitting the mark. Toby Earle, Development Manager at Piccolo explained that the colour palette and slender profile of the bricks helped make their decision. Since Petersen bricks were referenced and used locally in projects across Elwood, the developers wanted to use them in the palette of materials for Elwood House. 

According to Toby, they particularly liked the mix of handmade Kolumba and Flensborg bricks. However, getting the brick design right took time with the developer’s team spending considerable time with Robertson’s Building Products, playing around with the brick bonds to make them work. All these efforts finally paid off with the striking outcome achieved on the façade.

Being a boutique development, each Elwood House apartment is designed to be unique, with entirely bespoke interiors. The choice of Petersen bricks perfectly aligns with this design intent. Being handmade, every brick is unique, creating a rich tapestry of colours and a rustic, textured finish that adds just that little bit of extra interest. Aligned with the design brief of ‘taking the outside in’, Petersen bricks beautifully complement the internal finishes, and have been used as feature walls in the bedrooms and kitchens, as well as on the framed door entry to every apartment. 

Apart from the façade’s perfect blending of natural, textured materials, one of the most outstanding features of this luxury residential development is the three-storey, brick-lined atrium in the building’s foyer, complete with a water feature and reflection pool. Toby describes the space as one of the most dramatic and successful parts of the building. The response from the owners has been outstanding, concludes Toby.