Renovating an apartment presents many different challenges to renovating a house. Architect Kirby Roper, Director of Kirby Architects, reflects on a major apartment renovation in Melbourne?s Domain Road South Yarra. She offers some practical advice for renovating older apartments with a body corporate. Photography by Jacqui Henshaw.

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The Domain Road apartment occupies the entire second level of a boutique four-level building. With sensational views of Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens, the apartment is quite unique. Loving the location and excited by the potential, the new owners engaged Kirby Roper to bring the apartment interiors up to date. Kirby guided her client every step of the way, dealing with all the technical matters to ‘de-risk’ the project.
?Starting with comprehensive consultation made the way forward much clearer”, she said, “Once the constraints were fully scoped, we could concentrate on designing, confident that our scheme will be buildable”.

“It’s important to understand the base building structure and the engineering issues. As the architects, we engage engineers with the right skills to advise us on every project. Consulting with the Body Corporate and local authorities is also essential to fill out the picture of planning and construction constraints”, said Kirby, adding, ?Putting it simply, the body corporate usually owns the building structure. They have to be consulte...