It’s a fair bet this two-storey office block is the only one in North Fremantle with a car stacker.
With tighter spaces being developed across Perth there are a couple north of the river, and architect Roger Gregson predicts they will become more common.
“It’s the way of the future,” he told the Herald.
The North Fremantle project posed a number of problems, including a Western Power transformer on the property, and the need to meet planning requirements for parking bay spaces while providing a return on office space.
This close to the river and the port meant digging down for basement parking wasn’t an option.
“You are underwater,” Mr Gregson says.
The balconies are extra wide thanks to the site’s constraints, with the stacker parking dictating a greater ground-floor meterage, while the upper level interiors are slightly smaller.
The second storey balcony offers a rare view right down the centre of the harbour to the ocean beyond.
With total candor, Mr Gregson says the building’s “green” performance is more by design than intent.
Massive
It was the aesthetics of the tilt-up construction that led to cladding the building in materials that include terracotta tiles and massive aluminum louvres.
“The sun awning over the western and eastern facade would diminish sun on the glass,” Mr Gregson says.
The louvres also allow for natural ventilation of the car-parking area, rather than using electric extractors, he adds.
The “unique” site required plenty of lateral thinking, says Paul Day, spokesman for family-owned Day Corporation Development.
DCD was the first to purchase land in Northbank, but much had changed by the time building commenced last year, including the addition of a road bordering the site, that hadn’t been in the
original plans.
A panel of bright red terracotta tiles facing Queen Victoria Street will set the building apart, but they nearly didn’t get a guernsey.
“Mum is the head honcho and she didn’t like it at first,” Mr Day says.
by JENNY D’ANGER
Allied Property Consultants
104 Queen Victoria Street, North Fremantle
Bryan Cousins 0419 950 054
Clive Norman 0403 804 119