Renaissance Apartments, Canberra

Client Morris Property Group

Location Canberra

On a quiet corner of Light Street in Griffith, within an easy walk of the Manuka shopping precinct, Kingston and the Lake Burley Griffin Foreshore, Renaissance reimagines what a multi-residential development can offer one of Canberra’s most established neighbourhoods. The completed project delivers 399 apartments across seven buildings and three stages, stepping from four to seven storeys over two levels of secured basement parking, a scale that required careful, considered massing to sit comfortably within its context.

The design responds directly to the surroundings. To the north, the datum and materiality of St Paul’s Anglican Church informed the built form; to the south, the domestic grain of Stuart Street’s houses set the tone for scale and setback. Established trees were retained wherever possible, and generous landscaping was woven through and around the buildings, ensuring outlook and natural light remained central to the experience of every apartment.

A varied apartment typology – one, two and three bedroom homes – sits within a complex that is deliberately set back from the street edge, softening its presence and privileging privacy. Ground floor apartments open onto generous private gardens, upper levels are wrapped in deep, usable balconies, and the uppermost apartments have expansive rooftop terraces with views toward Parliament House. Landscaped communal gardens at ground level connect the buildings providing residents shared outdoor spaces to gather beyond their own front doors.