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Today's AFR reports the former DTEI building in Walkerville has been sold and will be converted to apartments. The 1960s 9 level office building has 18,000sqm of space and sits on a 1.2 hectare site. It sold for $10m

Great news. Although its only 9 levels, its a pretty large building. Anyone knows how it compares in size to the former ETSA (now air) building on Greenhill Rd.
Pretty smart move buying this. On the banks of Linear Park, beautiful old suburb of Walkerville, near city, developer would prob make a tidy profit on this one

Not only does the site contain a large building, but it also contains a reasonably sized car park space on its south side, and there's another car park on the opposite side of river that connects to St Peters that was created to serve the building as well. I wonder if this has been included in the contract as well. The car park to the south could be redesigned for more efficient use to the developer's benefit. There's also the new shopping centre that hasn't made much progress "under construction" directly to its north. I'm not sure of the size of the building compared to AIR, but the site area is a fair bit larger.

(I can see this building from my place and walk past it often)

Does anyone have any current photos of the site to add to this thread?

Any idea who bought it?

No, sorry. The article didn't mention.

Awesome location and great views of the city and the hills - hopefully the re-design of the building will match.

AtD wrote:Does anyone have any current photos of the site to add to this thread?

Yesterday, with Walkerville Village site:

Thanking you kindly.

Would that building be considered Brutalist?

rhino wrote:Would that building be considered Brutalist?

Even though I dont like the architecture of the building, it is nevertheless significant.

The Building is regarded as the first brutalist high-rise building in Australia. In fact, it was designed at a time when the term 'brutalist' had not even been invented yet. The building is so significant to the history of high rise building of Australia, that an entire chapter is devoted to it, in the respected book "Tall Buildings: Australian Business Going Up: 1945-1970".

Thanks Will

The fundamental problem with Brutalist buildings is that they are at their most desirable when they exist in their original state, right down to the original fixtures and fittings. I had always thought of the Boston City Hall (1969), for example, as a dreadful ugly thing, but when viewed in its original configuration with plush '70s carpeting, thick wood panelling and ornate fixtures to balance out the harshness of the exposed concrete and sharp lines, it seems to work far better as a whole than its underwhelming half-hearted form of recent times. It's just not an architectural style that lends itself well to modern upgrades or enhancements - you can, for example, add ultra-modern renovations to an Edwardian-era building and have it all work fabulously well, or to use a more local example, add a vast glass entrance to the State Library and do nothing but enhance the quality of the nearby historic wings, but a successful modern extension to a Brutalist building is few and far between.

It's also true, too, that many buildings branded as 'Brutalist' or similar don't quite display the very best elements of the style - the soaring ceilings; the imposing voids; the dramatic use of idle space to convey power and strength. Many simply applied the harsh concrete exteriors to basic square office buldings to create nothing more than hefty Stonehenge edifices sitting like obstinate blocks in the middle of cities. A real shame, too, that concrete back then just didn't have the necessary treatments to withstand much at all - now we see smoke stains, water stains or crumbling from surfaces that were once deliciously smooth and, well, impressively brutal.

A further problem is that the dated ostentatiousness of many interiors designed to complement Brutalist buildings is simply not desirable in the eyes of the vast majority of people. The minimalism of the International style is enjoying a resurgence (think green-tinted glass, acres of polished marble and terazzo, sharp lines, stainless steel and so on), but the combination of buttoned leather, plush velvet and exposed concrete just doesn't appeal to the masses these days.

The fact remains, of course, that far too many Brutalist buildings had an atrocious relationship with their surroundings, and as much as anything, that's part of the problem - in their original form they are the most appealing to look at and spend time in, but they are also the most dated, uninviting and confusing.

Omicron wrote:The fundamental problem with Brutalist buildings ...

An interesting read Omicron.

Good points, Omnicron. However, I suggest that in this case the pressure in the market for well-situated housing - which units in this building certainly would be - will overcome any aesthetic objections to the Brutalist style. In fact, as long as they don't paint the concrete exterior, the maintenance portion of the strata fees will be kept to a minimum!