Eastgate Apartments

Neil’s and client, Danny Psaros, had developed a close working relationship having successfully worked together on numerous single residences and apartment buildings. The site formed part of the East Perth Redevelopment Authority (EPRA) precinct, and it was partly located over the Graham Farmer Tunnel. Neil worked with the EPRA design guidelines in the design of the building while looking to maximise the return for the client. With the site located directly over the top of the Graham Farmer tunnel there were many requirements and constraints on the property to be resolved.

The Eastgate building is within the East Perth Redevelopment Authority (EPRA) precinct which was an urban consolidation demonstration site constructed under the aegis of the Commonwealth Government’s Building Better Cities Program of the early 1990s. The Western Australian State Government created a land development agency – the East Perth Redevelopment Authority – to oversee the process of assembling ‘surplus’ government land such as rail yards and consolidating them into a 120ha developable site. The project was intended to demonstrate the feasibility and attractiveness of higher density inner city living to a then unconvinced private property development industry, and to remediate a polluted industrial site – an example of positive planning.

In the late 1990s, part of the new Graham Farmer Freeway was sunk to create an underground tunnel and connect major transport arteries across the city. The people of Perth were enthusiastic about this much-needed road, but a corridor of vacant, dilapidated land was left above the tunnel.

This project, Eastgate, is located within the ‘Parry Street’ precinct of the ‘New Northbridge’ masterplan. The ‘New Northbridge’ project led by EPRA, was considered a success achieving the UDIA Award for Excellence in Urban Renewal.

“The success of New Northbridge is testament to the commitment not to ‘wipe the slate clean’, but to embark on a ten-year program to integrate existing urban forms, land uses and street pattern, with new architectural solutions, use mixes and the creation of a new public realm, integrating the area with surrounding streets.” - UDIA Award for Excellence in Urban Renewal Judges' Citation

The building that has street frontages on all four sides sist over one ‘city block’. Despite being one development, constructed at the same time, Neil’s intention with the design was to express the street frontage facades as a series or ‘collection’ of small buildings that had evolved over time. Emphasis was given to the street corners where these components were provided with additional height and at the main street corner, the buildings circular plan form rises as though a tower. To the northern side of the site, where the rear yards of the single residential houses are across the road, the scale of the building is reduced and the building presents as a row of two-story buildings, recessed between.

Thew apartments enjoy excellent cross ventilation due to the central area of the site being open containing the communal facilities of swimming pool, BBQ, and landscaping. The building has been designed as a series of interlocking planes and blocks, with the deepest of the of the wall planes designed with a red face brick finish as though the inner flesh was being revealed. Wall thickness, and voids in wall planes was a further device to articulate the mass. This conceptual approach to these buildings with a large mass of building was common to many of her buildings that Neil designed in this period. The building is capped by yet another plane being the horizontal plane of the flat roof at the highest point of the building that hovers above the roof terrace.

Thew apartments enjoy excellent cross ventilation due to the central area of the site being open containing the communal facilities of swimming pool, BBQ, and landscaping.