Project Contact
Adam Hannon
Isabelle Bozzo
Jennifer Drake
Johannes Lupolo-Chan
Joseph Crothers
Kate Menadue
Kate Russo
Nuria Ponferrada Agudo
Sarah Waldhuter
Steven Cundy
Zoë King
Journal Uni Terrace
Adelaide, South Australia
Positioned opposite the new Adelaide University and Lot Fourteen, Journal Uni Terrace is a 1,028-bed, 21-storey development that sets a new benchmark for student accommodation in Adelaide.
COX Director, Adam Hannon
For a lot of these students, this will be the first home they’ve ever chosen for themselves, and we wanted a building worthy of that: creating a campus environment with real light, real greenery, and real reasons to spend time with the people they live alongside. It felt just as important that the building gives back to the surrounding precinct not only to the people living inside it.
That sentiment carries through to ground level. Rather than one housing typology, Journal Uni Terrace separates its studio and shared apartment living into two towers arranged in a U-shape – a configuration that reduces the building’s bulk and floods both towers with daylight, giving residents a genuine choice in how they want to live.
Community runs through the whole building instead of sitting on one amenity floor. The towers carve back into terraces as they climb, echoing the greenery that lines the grand boulevard running up from the Adelaide Botanic Gardens to the site. A study mezzanine gives way to a communal kitchen and dining areas, a gym, entertainment lounge, games rooms and cinema, all opening onto sunlit, landscaped terraces. Partway up, a library looks back across to the university itself, before a sky lounge and terrace finish the sequence with sweeping views over the city.
At ground level, the towers rise from a shared podium around a courtyard that lets public space spill directly into the building. More than 600 square metres of it sits between the footpath and the front door, framed by a cluster of smaller brick and concrete facades that keep the height of the towers largely out of view from the street – a scale considered in response to nearby heritage buildings. Active retail extends the East End’s everyday street life onto the site, while bicycle and tram access leave the ground plane to people rather than cars.
Designed by COX and delivered by Multiplex for Journal Student Living, the development is targeting a 5-Star Green Star rating and will run fully electric, with interiors drawing on sustainable materials including cork and recycled brick.
Throughout, the design favours the everyday, unplanned moments of connection between residents over isolated bedrooms. Journal Uni Terrace follows Journal Market Way in Melbourne and Journal Garden Place in Brisbane, each a distinct response to its own city, and part of COX’s ongoing partnership with Journal Student Living.