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Apartments and penthouses North Adelaide On the parklands

Built to the angle of the winter sun.

Apartments and penthouses on the edge of the North Adelaide parklands, set square to the north. The low sun of June comes in under each balcony and crosses the floor; the high sun of December stops at the glass. Choose a floor and move the sun across it.

Choose a floor Read the section

Notes

The park’s trees are drawn as a line 14 metres high. Drawn for 11:00 on 21 June: the sun 29° up, 20° east of north, and each balcony shades the top 1.2 metres of the glass below it.

Gnomon

Drawing
North elevation
View
From the park, looking south
Drawn for
21 June, 11:00
Scale
5 metres, drawn at the elevation’s own scale
  1. 01 +4.50
  2. 02 +7.90
  3. 03 +11.30
  4. 04 +14.70
  5. 05 +18.10
  6. 06 +21.50
  7. 07 +24.90
  8. 08 +28.70

01 · The pin+4.50

A pin, and the shadow it keeps.

A gnomon (say NOH-mon) is the pin of a sundial: the part that casts the shadow. The dial stays still; the pin’s shadow moves across it, and the hour is read where the shadow falls.

The building was drawn the same way. It stands in the sun like a pin in a dial, and every floor was laid out by where its light and its shade will fall, hour by hour, through the year.

At 11:00 on 21 June the building’s shadow reaches 60 metres across the ground, to the south-south-west.

A slender steel pin standing in pale stone, its long thin shadow running across the slab.
Study: a steel pin in honed stone, late in the afternoon.

02 · North+7.90

The long face turns north.

21 JUNE · 31.7°22 SEPTEMBER · 54.7°21 DECEMBER · 78.5°NESW30°60°
The sun’s path over North Adelaide, 34.9° south, seen from above: 21 June, the equinoxes, 21 December. A dot for each hour of the clock.

A building on this side of the city can face the park or the sun. Here they are the same direction.

So the plan is long and shallow, and every living room is on the north. The bedrooms turn east and west. The lift, the stair, the kitchens and the bathrooms gather on the south side, where the light is even all day.

The drawing is the sun’s path on three days of the year, worked out for this latitude. In June it stays low and close to the north. In December it rises in the south-east, climbs almost overhead and sets in the south-west.

From high up, parkland treetops and lawn in winter haze, a balcony edge along the bottom.
Study: the parklands to the north, from high up, on a winter morning.

03 · The park+11.30

Among the leaves, then above them.

  1. 01Among the trunks and the lower branches.
  2. 02, 03In the leaves.
  3. 04 to 06The trees are below you, a floor of crowns.
  4. 07, 08Across the whole park to the hills.
  5. JuneThe branches thin, and the low sun comes through.

The parklands are on Kaurna Country.

04 · The balcony+14.70

The balcony is a ruler.

78.5°55.0°31.7°1.49 M2.77 M2.10 M3.00 M55°BALCONYLIVING ROOM← NORTH78.5°55.0°31.7°1.49 M2.77 M2.10 M3.00 M55°BALCONYLIVING ROOM← NORTH
Section through a living room, north to the left. Three noons: December, the equinoxes, June.

Every living room faces north across the park, under the balcony of the floor above.

The balcony is 2.1 metres deep. The glass is 3 metres high. That proportion is the whole idea.

At noon on the equinoxes the sun stands 55 degrees above the northern horizon, and the edge of the balcony puts its light exactly at the glass.

Through summer the sun climbs higher, and the light stops outside, on the balcony floor. Through winter it drops lower, and comes in: at noon in June, almost three metres across the floor; in the middle of a June morning, further still.

Nothing moves. The building does it with one edge.

78.5° 21 December, noon
The light lands 1.49 metres short of the glass, on the balcony floor.
55.0° The balcony’s angle
At noon on the equinoxes, 54.7° to 55.3° here, the light arrives at the glass, and goes no further.
31.7° 21 June, noon
The light lands 2.77 metres inside, across the living room floor.
A balcony at summer noon: the slab above shades it all but a strip of sun by the rail, and the glass stays in shade.
Study: a balcony at summer noon. The slab above keeps the glass in shade.
An empty room in midwinter: long shapes of sun, split by mullion shadows, reaching across a pale stone floor.
Study: a north room, mid-morning in June.

05 · Material+18.10

What the light falls on.

  • Honed pale stone underfoot, so the edge of the winter light stays sharp.
  • Lime plaster on the walls that take it.
  • Window frames dark and slender, so they draw a thin line.
  • Oiled timber for the joinery, where hands go.
Stone sill, stone floor and a dark window frame, crossed by one hard line of mullion shadow.
Study: sill, frame, one mullion’s shadow.

06 · Eight levels+21.50

Two to a floor, then one.

Six floors of two apartments, one either side of the lift, then two floors of one penthouse each. The heights are floor levels above the ground.

The eight levels, from the top of the building down
LevelHeightHomesOutlookFirst and last sun in the living rooms, 21 JunePlan and sun study
08+28.70 mOne penthouseThe whole park, the hills beyond07:28 – 17:06Open Level 08
07+24.90 mOne penthouseThe whole park, the hills beyond07:28 – 17:06Open Level 07
06+21.50 mTwo apartmentsAbove the canopy07:28 – 17:06Open Level 06
05+18.10 mTwo apartmentsAbove the canopy07:28 – 17:06Open Level 05
04+14.70 mTwo apartmentsAbove the canopy07:28 – 17:06Open Level 04
03+11.30 mTwo apartmentsIn the leaves07:34 – 17:00Open Level 03
02+7.90 mTwo apartmentsIn the leaves07:54 – 16:41Open Level 02
01+4.50 mTwo apartmentsAmong the trunks08:17 – 16:18Open Level 01

Worked out from the sun’s position and the drawings, with the park’s trees taken as a plain line 14 metres high. A drawn model, not a survey.

07 · The plans+24.90

North at the top of every drawing.

LIVINGSTUDYKITCHENBEDROOMBATHBALCONYLIVINGSTUDYKITCHENBEDROOMBATHBALCONYLIFT5 mN
Plan A Levels 01 to 06. Two apartments, the east one the mirror of the west.
LIVINGDININGSTUDYBEDROOMKITCHENBEDROOMBATHBATHBEDROOMBALCONYLIFT5 mN
Plan B Levels 07 and 08. One penthouse across the floor.

Which plan is which level

  1. 08Plan B+28.70 m
  2. 07Plan B+24.90 m
  3. 06Plan A+21.50 m
  4. 05Plan A+18.10 m
  5. 04Plan A+14.70 m
  6. 03Plan A+11.30 m
  7. 02Plan A+7.90 m
  8. 01Plan A+4.50 m

Three studies of Plan A · the west apartment, Level 05

LIVINGSTUDYKITCHENBEDROOMBATHBALCONY5 mN
21 June, 10:00 The sun 23° up, 34° east of north. It reaches 3.7 metres past the glass, and the study takes a long slant of it.
LIVINGSTUDYKITCHENBEDROOMBATHBALCONY5 mN
22 September, 12:00 The sun 55° up, almost due north. The edge of the balcony puts the light at the glass, and stops it there.
LIVINGSTUDYKITCHENBEDROOMBATHBALCONY5 mN
21 December, 16:00 The sun 52° up, 6° north of west. The north glass is in shade; the west windows take the afternoon.

08 · Write to us+28.70

Ask for the drawings.

Tell us which levels and which drawings, and what you would like to know about the light. We send the plans, the section and a sun study for any day you name.

Your own email address.

Which levels would you like drawings for?
Which drawings?

Nothing on this page is sent or saved.

R · Roof+32.50

From the roof, the whole dial.

081012141621 JUNETHE EQUINOXES21 DECEMBER50 MNTHE PARKLANDSTHE ROAD
Site plan, north up. The tip of the roof’s shadow on three days, hour by hour, and the building’s shadow drawn for 11:00 on 21 June.

The sun on this page is worked out in your browser from the NOAA solar equations for North Adelaide, and projected through the drawings wall by wall and mullion by mullion. The trees are a plain line; the building is drawn, not built, and the photographs are studies made for this page.

The name is set in Italiana, the words in Mulish.

Down to the ground