Imago 2

Neil’s and client, Danny Psaros, had developed a close working relationship having successfully worked together on numerous single residences and apartment buildings. With the success of the adjacent Imago Living building, Danny purchased the adjacent site to develop a building that would relate to the Imago Living building. At Danny’s request, Neil carried out feasibility studies of the potential of the site before it was purchased from the East Perth Redevelopment Authority (EPRA). Neil worked with the EPRA design guidelines in the design of the building while looking to maximise the return for the client.

Following the completion of the project, Danny Psaros reflected on what it was like to work with Neil on yet another project: ‘It’s very difficult to sell something if you don’t believe in it, and I believe in Neil’s designs – I’ve sold apartments to family, friends and acquaintances within the Greek community. Neil has a great ability to understand a brief and correlate with what the planning authorities and guidelines require. I think one of the biggest skills that an architect needs to possess in the Perth market is to understand the authorities and what they’re chasing’.

Goongoongup is the name for present-day Claisebrook Cove and the surrounding area, encompassing an ephemeral freshwater stream that once flowed from the Perth swamps into the Swan River. The course of the stream drained east down Wellington Street and was joined by another tributary along present-day Royal Street. Highly significant to Noongar people, Goongoongup was not only a source of fresh water but a place to gather a variety of edible plants and aquatic life such as bulrushes and gilgies (freshwater crayfish). There is also evidence of fresh springs in this area. 

The area remained an important camping place and food source for Noongar people right until the area’s redevelopment in the 1990s. It continues to be of great significance to Noongar people as a site that once linked freshwater springs, lakes and swamps (and their associated rich ecologies) to the Bilya (Swan River). Following the gradual resumption of land over time and the draining of the swamps by Europeans, water now flows into the Cove from a system of drains beneath the city. In 1995, the State Government adopted the name Goongoongup for the railway bridge constructed between the east river frontage and Burswood. (Source: Perth Museum).

As Perth began to expand, one of the obstacles to development was the Claise Brook valley with its intermittent flows and seasonal lakes. Claise Brook was an ephemeral freshwater stream which ran from Lake Monger through Lakes Georgiana, Sutherland, Irwin and Kingsford, and drained down Wellington Street to Tea Tree Lagoon at what is now known as Claisebrook Cove. Another tributary of the drain ran from Lakes Thompson and Poulett (Birdwood Square), through Stones Lake (Perth Oval) to join the mainstream at Water Street (now Royal Street). 

The name of the waterway of Claise Brook and it’s cove was originally “Clause’s Brook”, after the ship’s surgeon aboard Captain James Stirling’s vessel that explored the Swan River in March 1827. Clause wrote about the area in his journal, but the first publication to mention Claise Brook was the Inquirer newspaper in 1848. The Inquirer announced that land at the mouth of the brook was reserved for use by a water mill. From the early 1850s, the area began to be known as Claisebrook after a convict depot was established in the area, rather than Claise Brook which chiefly referred to the waterway. According to Historian Richard Offen, the names seem to have been fairly interchangeable. (Richard Offen, 2016).

In 1885 most swamps at the back of Perth had been drained but Smith’s Lake and Lake Monger were still used for domestic water supply and the water from the main drain running into Claise Brook was used by residents living along its banks (Hunt 1980). As the land was cleared of vegetation the water table began to rise and overwhelm the Claise Brook drain causing flooding in the town. The drain was expanded in 1899 to accommodate greater volumes.

In the 1880s it was still possible to catch gilgies (freshwater crayfish) in the Claise Brook drain, but by the 1890s a population influx meant that East Perth became very overcrowded. Two large open drains, with the city as their catchment area, flowed into East Perth where they joined together to form the Claise Brook drain. The stench of the drain became notorious, and it received waste from a tannery, soap factory, brickworks, factories, stables, laundries, four sawmills, and foundries. By the turn of the century the drain was considered a disgrace to the council and local children were warned not to go near it. One of the open drains in Coolgardie St was known as the ‘fever drain’ (Stannage 1979). 

The East Perth Redevelopment Authority (EPRA) was established in 1991 to manage the redevelopment and urbanisation of the East Perth area. Former industrial land (including the former East Perth Gasworks, scrap yards, brick works, stables, warehouses and railway yards), has undergone extensive environmental rehabilitation and remediation. Claisebrook Village now covers 137.5 hectares of riverfront land in East Perth. Claise Brook itself remains a drain buried beneath the city. 9Source: Museum of WA ‘Reimagining Perth’s Wetlands – Claise Brook the lost River of Perth’).

The Imago Living building is within the East Perth redevelopment project which was an urban consolidation demonstration site constructed under the aegis of the Commonwealth Government’s Building Better Cities Program of the early 1990s. The Western Australian State Government created a land development agency – the East Perth Redevelopment Authority – to oversee the process of assembling ‘surplus’ government land such as rail yards and consolidating them into a 120ha developable site. The project was intended to demonstrate the feasibility and attractiveness of higher density inner city living to a then unconvinced private property development industry, and to remediate a polluted industrial site – an example of positive planning.

Like the adjacent Imago Living building, this building has been designed to front all streets equally that surround the development. The building mass has been centrally separated on the east/ west axis to enable the winter sun to penetrate the southern apartments and for the provision of excellent cross-ventilation to the resulting two-sided apartments.The building is separated again with the western taller side being served by a lift while the eastern end of the development is reduced in scale and provide ‘walk-up’ access. All two-bedroom apartments have a north facing balcony and northern orientation to living areas and half of the three-bedroom apartments enjoy the same amenity.

The building has been designed as a series of interlocking planes and blocks, with the deepest of the of the wall planes designed with a red face brick finish as though the inner flesh was being revealed. Wall thickness, and voids in wall planes was a further device to articulate the mass. This conceptual approach to these buildings with a large mass of building was common to many of her buildings that Neil designed in this period.

Further articulation and individual identity was provided by the colourful painted balcony panels, intended to give individual owners identity and visual connection to the location of their own apartment within the building from afar. Contrasting the masonry elements are the fine grain detail of aluminium awnings to small windows and the suspended street canopies over the surrounding pedestrian pavement to the streetscape.

From the outset of the design process consideration was given to the orientation to provide the best winter sun penetration and cross-ventilation to apartments. The building mass has been centrally separated on the east/ west axis to enable the winter sun to penetrate the southern apartments and for the provision of excellent cross-ventilation to the resulting two-sided apartments. The majority of the apartments have a northern orientation to internal and external living spaces.