Laneway started with a question we keep coming back to: what happens when you design a building around the life already happening at its feet? In this case, that life is a Brisbane corner site — a bus stop, a café spilling onto the footpath, people coming and going. The building needed to earn its place among all of that, not stand apart from it.
The brief we set ourselves was deliberately broad. A ground-floor café that belongs on the street. Apartments above that feel like homes, not units. And a building envelope that ties the two together without pretending they're the same thing. Four levels, three programmes, one material language.
Three levels of generous balconies sit above a ground-floor café that spills onto the street — hospitality and residential life stacked with purpose. Built for the Corner
Mixed-use buildings often struggle with identity — the commercial ground floor wants to shout, the residential levels above want to retreat, and the result is a building that looks like two ideas stacked on top of each other. With Laneway, we wanted the opposite. The café beneath its umbrellas, the deep balconies above, and the structural frame holding it all together are all speaking the same language.
The front elevation is deliberately open. Floor-to-ceiling glazing on every level means the building doesn't hide what it's doing — you can see people eating downstairs and living upstairs, and that transparency is the point. This is a building designed to be part of the street, not set back from it.
A sculptural spiral staircase in burnished brass anchors the double-height foyer - part lobby, part café, entirely a reason to linger. The Staircase That Earns its Place
Every building needs a way to move between levels. Not every building needs a sculpture to do it. The spiral staircase in the Laneway foyer is unashamedly a centrepiece — burnished bronze wrapped around a tight radius, rising through a double-height space that works as both café and lobby.
But it's not just for show. The foyer needed to serve two masters: a welcoming ground-floor hospitality space where you'd happily sit for a long coffee, and an arrival point for residents coming home. The staircase solves both — it gives the café a sense of occasion and gives residents a threshold moment that separates the noise of the street from the quiet of the levels above. The bronze columns framing the space echo the staircase material, grounding everything in the same warm palette.
Four levels, three programmes, one idea — a building shaped by the street as much as the street is shaped by it.
A Screen That Works as Hard as it Looks
The bronze fins running across the upper facade are doing more than creating a rhythm. They're a sun-screening device tuned to Brisbane's northern exposure — angled to filter direct light while still letting the interior breathe. From the street, they give the building texture and depth. From inside, they frame views of the city without the glare.
We wanted the fins to feel like part of the building's structure rather than something bolted on afterwards. They're integrated into the façade framework, running floor to ceiling across the upper levels and stopping cleanly at the corner where the building opens up to glass. It's a move that gives Laneway two very different faces depending on which street you're approaching from — and both of them work.
A rhythm of bronze fins filters northern light across the upper levels, adding depth and privacy without closing the building off from the street. 
Warm timber joinery and timber flooring ground the interiors, while floor-to-ceiling glazing pulls the city in close. City Living Without Compromise
The apartments in Laneway were designed to feel like homes first and apartments second. Warm timber joinery lines the walls, natural stone anchors the living spaces, and full-height glazing opens each unit to a deep balcony with enough room for a proper outdoor dining setting — not just a couple of chairs squeezed against a railing.
The material palette inside deliberately echoes what's happening outside. The polished concrete balcony floor, the bronze-toned window frames, the timber — it all connects back to the building's external language. There's no moment where you step inside and feel like you've entered a different building. That consistency is what makes the whole concept hold together.
Brass-framed balustrades and full-height glazing dissolve the boundary between apartment living and city skyline. Golden Hour, Every Hour
The upper-level terraces are where Laneway shows its warmth. Bronze balustrade posts, glass panels, and a deep concrete soffit overhead create a space that catches the late afternoon light and holds it — the kind of warm glow that makes you reach for a glass of wine rather than a light switch.
We designed these terraces to be rooms in their own right, not afterthoughts. They're deep enough to furnish properly, sheltered enough to use year-round, and oriented to frame the Brisbane skyline without being overwhelmed by it. At golden hour, the bronze catches the light and the building does exactly what we designed it to do — it glows.
Shaped by the Street
Laneway is a studio project built around a simple idea: that a mixed-use building should take its cues from the life already happening around it. The café on the corner, the people waiting for the bus, the neighbours on their balconies — this building was designed to belong to all of them.
Every material choice reinforces that connection — bronze fins that respond to the sun, polished concrete that wears well underfoot, glazing that keeps the inside and outside in conversation. Nothing is decorative for the sake of it. That discipline is what gives Laneway its confidence.
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Every great project starts with a conversation about the land, the orientation, and how you want to live in it.