Mellor Street Apartment (Common Ground), Adelaide

Common Ground has become an integral and important part of Light Square

Master Builder’s Association Award for Excellence in Affordable and Public Housing, 2015

The Common Ground program provides market-standard affordable rental housing and associated support services to low-income people and those at risk of homelessness, the Mellor Street Apartments designed for vulnerable women, as well as their children.

Located off Light Square in the Adelaide CBD, the Tectvs designed apartment building features 52, light and airy, one and two-bedroom apartments. Its façade is highly figured, precast concrete panels, with painted and raw off-form concrete finishes which emulate the gritty character of a busy city lane.  The arrangement of all internal spaces was functional and logical. A high-tech security system would provide residents with a sense of security, in what is, a very crowded part of the city. 

​

Tectvs used street art to create some character to the external facade of the architecture. A prominent local artist, “Vans the Omega” painted a colourful, people-focused mural on the eastern façade of the building, which proved so popular that it quickly became a photographer’s hotspot! Veiled linkage was made to the history of the site, something near and dear, that Adelaidean’s would appreciate. Tectvs featured the colours of a Balfour’s chocolate frog in the façade of the building. 

​

Our aim, to create welcoming, secure homes for vulnerable members of our South Australian community.