Balfours Precinct

Hames Sharley was engaged by investor Haneco Lighting in November 2014 for a six week period to provide a Concept Design for the Balfours Precinct in Adelaide’s Western CBD. The existing site has two residential towers, one 18-storeys and the other 8-storeys. Both towers have two levels of basement car parking. The challenge for this site was to provide a mixed-use development including retail at ground floor, recreation facilities at first floors, design around an internal mall and provide approximately 450 residential units. Hames Sharley’s strategy for this project as a knowledge-based company was to break the response into three separate deliverables; the first would be Research, followed by Analysis and finally Response based on the two previous bodies of work.

The first stage of Research was to investigate the site to understand its’ potentials and shortfalls. This was achieved with a two week intensive period of residential market research, site and broader city analysis along with a detailed demographic analysis of the immediate precinct. The second stage of Analysis was to analyse these findings and present them, indicating to the client what needs to be done architecturally to achieve the brief based on the research. The final stage of Response was our solution in an architectural form which was driven by Research and Analysis. Our solution was driven primarily by the number of apartments which would be in the market at the time of marketing. The site would be generating approximately 450 apartments with another 400 on the market from other developments in the city.

This is a large number of apartments for Adelaide hence our response was to provide a Unique and Identifiable product. Each apartment is unique and has a slightly different offering, providing varying orientations and scarcity of floor plan. The identifiable product was achieved by designing something all of Adelaide would be able to describe without having to remember the name of the residential complex. The final design provided prime residential offerings in the middle of the site where no other adjoining sites could build out or overshadow. This is evident in the twisted element which faces both to the beach and the hills. The plaza was also a major design aspect of this site; the ability to make the plaza function was dependent on the correct location of retail offerings and entries and exits from the main towers. Hames Sharley was unsuccessful for this project (Concept Design only).