Brick Inlay delivers a cohesive and contextual facade at Journal Campus House

In the heart of Carlton, on the edge of the University of Melbourne precinct, JCB has designed a mixed-use student housing development balancing urban energy with collegiate warmth. Developed by Cityplan for Journal Living, Journal Campus House responds to its layered context, where the traditional campus meets a denser urban fabric, with architecture that is grounded and welcoming.

Jimmy Walker, Senior Associate at JCB, explains how Cityplan’s model for student housing is different: “They prioritise larger communal spaces, investing around 10% of the total floor area in shared spaces, which creates a much more vibrant student lifestyle.”

While some student housing providers have an aesthetic and style that translates across all their projects, Journal Living creates developments that are unique to place. For JCB this meant delivering a building in the spirit of Carlton, situated in a transitional zone between the university and the city.

On the north side of Grattan Street, the Melbourne University’s historic campus defines a traditional character, while the south side features a mix of institutional, commercial and residential buildings. “We’re right on the edge of that transition between the urban campus and the traditional campus,” Jimmy says, “so the building warranted a considered response to that, straddling those two contexts.”

JCB’s design response is a series of two and three-storey forms appropriately scaled to the surrounding context. The result is a series of stacked and staggered boxes, in varying colours, shapes and forms, which are offset and set back, reducing the development’s scale and bulk. By layering the forms and shifting the materials, the building feels connected to its surrounds.

The material palette was central to creating a building unique to Carlton. Red brick grounds the design, referencing the traditional familiarity at the podium level, while perforated metal cladding and grey brick reference the area’s more institutional and commercial buildings.

The ground floor podium’s combination of Rustic Red and Grey bricks and brick tiles echo the surrounding heritage and institutional architecture, making the development feel at home in its context, while offering subtle variation across the stacked forms. The ground floor features hand-laid brickwork up to the level one slab, creating tactile, finely detailed brickwork that also rolls into columns, plinths, and seating inside in the building. Above this, precast Brick Inlay panels, with matching brick tiles, carry the material expression upward, seamlessly aligning the texture, colour, and finish of the hand-laid bricks below.

This consistency was made possible working with Robertson’s as we supply both face bricks and matching brick tiles, which is critical to achieving a cohesive facade:

“Aside from loving the colour and texture of the bricks, the fact that they came in both a face tile and a face brick gave us the opportunity to perfectly match the Brick Inlay construction technology with the hand laid bricks that were required on the ground floor, creating a continuous and cohesive façade,” Jimmy says.

Brick inlay also offered significant construction efficiencies without compromising architectural intent. With limited space for scaffolding and a podium on the critical path, the Brick Inlay panels allowed the façade to be installed quickly and safely.

“The feedback from the builder, Multiplex, was that the precast brick system was significantly cheaper and faster than hand laid brick on this project,” Jimmy explains. “You’re able to use the precast facade as a full arrest system when the brick panel is lifted in, and once it's supported and tied back, it acts as your balustrade so you can avoid the cost of scaffolding.”

Above the brick base, perforated metal cladding folds into a zigzag pattern contrasting with the masonry and sitting sensitively beside a heritage-listed Victorian terrace in the middle of the site:

“It was a strategy to descale the corner of the site. Using that kind of cladding adjacent to the heritage building is a way of being more sympathetic to its scale. And offering something that reads differently to the predominant brick podium forms in the red and grey.”

Inside, the warmth and texture of the brick continue into the shared spaces, connecting the exterior and interior. The communal areas are generous, high-quality spaces ranging from kitchens, libraries, reading nooks and study areas, to a roof terrace on level 15. “It’s genuinely thrilling to see students enjoying those spaces; seeing the building full of students is probably the ultimate pride you get from these projects.”

For JCB, the project’s success lies in both design execution and social impact:

 “There is a student housing shortage, and we’re proud to be contributing in a meaningful way to society in what was a genuinely collaborative process with Cityplan and Multiplex,” Jimmy says. “The building presents well to the street and gives students of all walks of life the opportunity to live and study away from their families in a safe and warm, welcoming communal environment. There really is a lot to be proud of.”

Architect: JCB Architects

Product: Brick Inlay with Krause Rustic Red and Rustic Grey bricks and brick tiles

Builder: Multiplex

Precaster: NUCON and CPS

Photography: Peter Clarke