v for vision

DEVELOPING AFFORDABLE housing in the heart of a city's central business district is a rare development opportunity. So when a near-derelict site on Auckland's Queen Street became vacant, Conrad Properties could see the potential.

"Volt on Queen was all about location. We could see that the site was central to just about everything in Auckland, including the central business district," says Conrad Properties' Jamie Hutchens. "It was also one of the last empty sites in the city centre."

The other attraction was the burgeoning market, driven mainly by investors keen to tap into the demand for good quality student accommodation from the city's expanding tertiary education providers.

Having found a site and a market, the next challenge was to make best use of the space. Architect Colin Leuschke of Leuschke Group Architects proposed a slim V shape to orientate the towers towards the sunny north-west and to create an enclosed courtyard.

"The first thing you need to do with small spaces is to bring light into the rooms, so we used a V shape to maximise the length of the outside faces," he says. "We've also created a private courtyard, which keeps the retail presence on the street side."

A key part of the brief from Conrad Properties was to ensure that the apartments would be attractive to investors and meet the developer's quality standards.

"For us it's about using durable materials and going beyond minimum specifications so that developments like Volt will stand the test of time," says Hutchens.

For more details, visit the Conrad Properties website: www.conradproperties.com.au.

Story by: Trendsideas