Moonbria's rear stairwell received some new LED lighting across all its three distinct levels.
The rear stairwell is slightly wider than the front foyer stairwell, allowing for easier access for furniture and trades people alike.

The noticeable change in lighting configuration was particularity evident at night, with the building's trademark curves taking on a whole new ambience.
This completes the buildings LED integration program with both stairwells now having been updated to the the more efficient LED platform.

There was a breathless sense of ‘the future is now’ in November 1941, when the Moonbria apartments were first advertised in the Argus newspaper:
 
Flat seekers! Here is the complete answer to modern living: MOONBRIA.
 
Compact living units:
 

• electric elevator
• novel features
• free hot water
• lock-up garages
• resident caretaker
• incinerator chute
• free refrigeration
• labour-free kitchens
• wall fold bed

 
Representing a new departure in flat living, Moonbria will instantly appeal to the flat dweller seeking something really modern and different. Special features include electric elevator, concealed kitchens, writing desks, cupboards and even beds, all of which spring from obscurity at a touch of the hand.
 
It pains us to say that if we were announcing Moonbria’s grand opening today, we’d have to strike out the mention of free hot water, resident caretaker, incinerator chute and free refrigeration – and labour-free kitchens remains open to interpretation. But the words novel, compact and modern remain as accurate today as they were 75 years ago.
 
Rather than listing the modern amenities, today’s real estate ads tend to highlight Moonbria’s superb location, just a few minutes’ leisurely stroll from the boutiques and cafes of Toorak Village. Other oft-used words in the lexicon of modern-day copywriters include lifestyle, easy-care, practical and low-maintenance. The canniest agents target their market by mentioning Sir Roy Grounds’ suitably groundbreaking design, inaccurately throwing in the term art deco rather than modernist.
 
As the high-rise cranes dotting the streets attest, and the air resonates with the judder of demolition crews and pile drivers preparing the way for apartment block elevator shafts and car parks, character is disappearing from our streets. Apartment buildings are increasingly faceless complexes and mini cities, with South Yarra set to join Docklands as an apartment hellhole, where the shadow of a designer let alone architect seems barely to have graced the blueprints.
 
The Better Apartments project managed by the mellifluously acronymic DELWP (Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning) and OVGA (Office of the Victorian Government Architect) is responding to the apparent dwindling of design standards since the days of Moonbria’s birth, understatedly noting that 'the lack of standard requirements for internal apartment amenity has resulted in some poor designs and inadequate long-term living environments'. Their consultative group of apartment dwellers has ranged the following as most important when pondering design standards: daylight, space, natural ventilation, noise, energy & resources. To which we’d add beauty, style and flair.
 
As Professor Michael Buxton from RMIT said so succinctly: ‘Heritage becomes incredibly important for liveability. If you pull down a highly valued heritage city and turn it into a city full of tiny apartments nobody in the city actually wants, it won’t cater to people in the city. If you replace a high amenity heritage city with a low amenity city with high rise canyons then that will reduce the liveability of the city dramatically and alienate a large number of people.’
 
And as a recent advertisement for a highly sought-after Moonbria apartment put it: ‘In a block that's quirky, retro and utterly unique, here's a studio apartment with a bundle of personality’.
 
 

In July 2016 the 'Moonbria' owners corporation commissioned Boodle Concepts to revamp the central courtyard. The brief was simple.
Restore the gardens to there former glory, just the way that Mr Grounds would have first conceived them.
The results compliment both night & day.
Boodle concepts maintained the original central rock formations, and the surrounding 1940's sculpted mosaic, whilst highlighting the glorious central tree with two new feature outdoor up-lights.
Needless to say, the smiles on the faces of 'Moonbria' residents have made it all worth while.

With gate open 'Moonbria' stars at the Robin Boyd Foundation  Open Day
 
The design spotlight shone on marvellous Moonbria on Sunday 22 May, when the building was included as an example of good apartment design in the Robin Boyd Foundation’s Open House program.
 
Intended to inspire greater community awareness of the benefits of good design, the Foundation’s popular self-guided tour featured nine significant apartments designed since the 1940s, including several by Roy Grounds. The itinerary included:
 

• Glenunga Flats (1940, Frederick Romberg)
• Clendon (1939–40, Roy Grounds)
• Moonbria (1941, Roy Grounds)
• Quamby (1941–42, Roy Grounds)
• Melbourne Terrace – Mondo Apartments (1994, Fender Katsalidis Architects)
• Republic Tower (1999, Fender Katsalidis Architects)
• Wynnstay Apartments (2001, McBride Charles Ryan
• Wynnstay Houses (2013, McBride Charles Ryan)
• Bedford Street Townhouses (2015, DKO)

 
More than 550 people attended the tour, including the Minister for Planning, Richard Wynne, who is currently finalising a set of guidelines for apartment design to be released later this year. We’re sure his experience at Moonbria will influence his recommendations.
 
Moonbria came second in the popularity stakes, with 374 visitors touring the building. Only the Wynnstay Apartments received more visitors (388), proving that sixty years is little more than a blink in the eye of those interested in good design.
Tour attendees were invited to view one of the Moonbria studio apartments currently being renovated by its new owners. Stripped back to reveal the stunning original parquet flooring, the work-in-progress put a unique perspective on how Grounds’ ‘bare bones’ design continues to hold tremendous design appeal even in today's over-crowded urban landscape.
 
Almost 60% of those attending the tour were from the design industry, and all age groups were well represented.

At a time when we at Moonbria are working with the Robin Boyd Foundation’s Open House Program, let’s take a look back at where this collaboration first began. 
____________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Before Denton Corker Marshall, Wood Marsh and Fender Katsalidis, one of Australia’s most successful architectural firms was Grounds, Romberg and Boyd, familiarly known as Gromboyd.
 
The three architects made the decision to pool their talents when they found themselves sharing lecture rooms at the University of Melbourne in the early 1950s. The trailblazing practice that eventuated operated between 1953 and 1962, and was responsible for some of Australia’s most distinctive mid-century modernist buildings.
 
Each partner brought their own characteristic style, yet together they developed and carried the beacon for a distinctive Australian form of International design, known contemporaneously as, what else, Contemporary. Firmly eschewing their modernist preferences, the firm operated from Victorian-era terrace house in Albert Street, East Melbourne.
 
Frederick Romberg (1913–92) trained in Switzerland and on moving to Melbourne in 1938 he worked with the legendary practice Stephenson & Turner. He left the firm to focus on his groundbreaking apartment complexes in Queens Road – Newburn and Stanhill. His Gromboyd contributions included the ETA factory at Braybrook (1957), Sacred Heart Girls’ School in Oakleigh (1954), ICI Staff Recreation Centre at Deer Park (1955), Croydon’s Luther College (1958), Ormond College’s Picken Court (1959) and St George’s Church of England in East Ivanhoe (1962).
 
Writer, iconoclast, commentator and, yes, architect, Robin Boyd’s passion was domestic architecture, including his South Yarra home (1959) and Domain Park Towers (1962). He also collaborated on the firm’s Holy Trinity Lutheran National Memorial Church (1961).
 
The shared focus of Toorak society architect Roy Grounds was on residential architecture and larger-scale projects. His key work during the Gromboyd period was the futuristic Shine Dome for the Academy of Science in Canberra (1959).
 
One can only imagine what architectural confections the firm could have constructed in the decades to come if the firm hadn’t dissolved in 1962, largely due to Grounds being appointed as the sole commissioned architect to work on the prestigious NGV project.
 
It’s interesting to note that the four influential Toorak apartment buildings designed by Roy Grounds between 1939 and 1941 – Clendon, Clendon Corner, Moonbria and Quamby – were drafted with the aid of Robin Boyd, who worked as Grounds’ assistant prior to WWII.
 
The synchronicity in all of this is, of course, the inclusion of Moonbria in the Robin Boyd Foundation’s forthcoming Open House Program event on Sunday 14 May, focusing on the trendsetting apartment designs of Roy Grounds and Fender Katsalidis.
 
As the public conversation continues around apartment design, and the current dearth of well-executed examples, it seems only fitting to conclude with the Robin Boyd Foundation’s maxim:

     The best way to learn about design and to appreciate design is to experience good design for yourself.
 
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves!

The entrance to Moonbria was reborn in the winter of 2012, when the
apartment building¹s committee decided to add a new gate and revamped
foyer to match the brilliant new exterior paint job.
 
Over the years, there have been several changes since Moonbria was first
dreamed up by Mr Grounds in 1941. The front windows, for instance, were
most likely added in the 1960s to combat the wind and rain that wafted through the
building¹s shared landings. Roy Grounds didn¹t include these windows in
his original blueprint, so it was decided that the new gate would reflect
this evolution of the original design.
 
And it did.
 
Justin Noble, fashioned a well-considered drawing that brought together all the design
elements we can see in the building¹s aesthetic today.
 
This initial design was referenced and brought to life by Nick Nifakos
from Alpha Wrought Iron in Gertrude Street in Fitzroy, a company whose
previous commissions included the magnificent central parade gates at
Flemington racecourse.
 
The gate¹s electric-blue paintwork was chosen to replicate the full-height
mosaic columns that pierce the centre of the building, flanking Roy
Grounds¹ masterstroke, his Guggenheim-inspired circular staircase.
 
The rest, as they say, is history, and the gate has become yet another
welcoming feature for residents lucky enough to call Moonbria home.

Sir Roy Grounds was a pioneer in "small footprint' living.
His design mantra still holds up today and has become the bedrock for how we like to live in the 21st century.  Grounds' overall focus was to incorporate Light, Space, and Nature into one.

All these elements blend seamlessly together around Moonbria's central courtyard, and allow each of the twenty one units, a 365 day view over all its common gardens.
It is worth nothing that of Moonbria's  twenty one units only five have their own private balcony.
Amongst these five, only three come with a highly desirable lock up garage on title. 

This recent sale marks the second consecutive high value residual that savvy buyers are placing on timeless design set in classic residential locations.

Hello readers of the Moonbria website my name is Lester Devere my wife Jian Liu I have lived in Toorak approximately 5 years previously in Toorak Road, we applied for this apartment a mid December and we were over the moon when the agent contacted us to tell us we were successful with our application.

We are very happy to be living in one of the apartments designed by Mr Roy Grounds, the apartment is fresh with open plan living if I could say that about a one bedroom apartment.

Our dinner table is situated near the north facing windows looking over a beautiful central garden allowing morning sun into our apartment, in the evening we sit back and look out of our windows where the light and shadows reflect off the white spiral staircase at the back of the building and the large over hanging veranda's which flank the inner central garden which is an important part of the overall design of this building.

When Jian and I come home from our nightly walk, I get a little excited when approaching this magnificent blue and white building, looking at this building from Mathoura road we can see the foyer with its space-aged spiral staircase which at night is all lit up and encased in a multi framed oblong glass wall, made up of framed windows which go to the very top of the Roy Grounds building stopping at a circular turret designed glass circular lift, a round lift do you mind.

The design of the apartment block is definitely before its time, for 1941 you can see the young architects of the period were experimenting with the open plan living concept, this building even now could be seen as modern, space aged, wide veranda's blue tiled pillars the central open garden, extremely inviting for all who are lucky enough to reside in the beautiful building.

Lester Devere - Jian Liu