• Project: Rushall Park

• Location: Fitzroy North

• Client: Old Colonists’ Association of Victoria

Project Description

Rushall Park expands upon the built legacy of the Old Colonists’ Association of Victoria, the state’s oldest retirement village provider, delivering 35 independent living units on the last remaining development site within the historic village boundaries.

Previously given over to ad hoc back of house facilities, the location needed a response that was able to interface both with the immediately abutting metropolitan rail line and station, and the nuanced and highly sensitive existing village. It needed to provide an amenity buffer without becoming a wall unsympathetic to the delicacy and scale of the existing scattered neighbourhood.

Rushall Park is the nexus between old and new, between ever-advancing infrastructure and a charming pocket of history. It engages confidently and purposefully with the tension these two conditions present. The scale of the building’s detail and its colour, texture and shadow is in synthesis with its assorted and characterful heritage counterparts.