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Workspaces of the future must be designed to be better than any alternative, according to Tim Lovitt, Associate Director of Digital Intelligence, PwC Australia.
He recently suggested said the firm could take up co-working space in future in the new building at Barangaroo. 
“PwC has been experimenting for over a year with co-working space," he said.
"We have diverse partnerships, including Facebook and LinkedIn, tailored to solving specific problems for individual projects.
"This is our focus, and we will build our workspace around that.”
Lovitt said workspaces of the future must be designed to be better than any alternative. 
“Workspaces of the future will need to be incredible spaces that people wish to work in, that are better than the alternatives – such as our lounge rooms or the local coffee shop,” concluded Mr Lovitt. 
He made the comments at Knight Frank Australia's Global Cities: The 2017 Report launch which investigated the future of real estate in the world’s leading cities. 
According to Knight Frank’s Head of Research and Consulting, Australia Matt Whitby, disruption is set to equal demand in the real estate sector. 
“Yes, jobs are being lost across sectors globally due to automation and technology, but humans are getting more interesting careers doing what humans do best – problem solving. This will be similar for property professionals, who need to embrace changes in the sector and the economy and become more advisory – offering greater intelligence and idea generation to clients," he said.
“New jobs being created are offering a flow-on effect into other sectors, including property. For example, the Fintech sector, including cashless payments and other financial technology, has created a complete new industry. This is prompting new demand in other sectors, including real estate. Newly-created, high-value jobs in programming or app design are creating demand for expensive, trendy offices.”
Whitby agreed co-working will be one of the biggest growth sectors in the global city office markets, with Sydney and Melbourne leading the way here in Australia. 
“It will not just be start up, incubator, or collaborative businesses. Demand for co-working space will expand to the large, corporate occupiers who require growth or project space on an as-needed basis.”
Whitby said WeWork is the obvious example as in Sydney, WeWork has gone from zero space six months ago and will occupy 22,000 square metres of space by next year.”
In October WeWork Martin Place opened in the heart of Sydney’s central business district surrounded by Australia's financial institutions in an historic Sydney building, the Moneybox Building.
Designed by WeWork, along with local external consultant TomMarkHenry, the design takes cues from the building’s banking history as the hot desks on the main floor were inspired by the old bank teller desks that can still be seen in the lobby. Murals and paintings from local artists Tristan Kerr and Dina Broadhurst adorn the inside of the building.
Last month WeWork, the space, community and services provider based in New York, opened its second Sydney location, at 100 Harris Street, Pyrmont (above). 
WeWork currently has around 70,000 members, located in 100+ physical locations in 30+ cities and 12 countries around the world.
WeWork Pyrmont is located in a former 100 year old woolstore and presents a unique opportunity for one of WeWork's spaces.
The issue of pets in the office was addressed by Savills International.
"Popularity for bringing <a href="https://www.savills.com.au/blog/article/147357/australia-articles/pets-in-the-office--is-it-just-a-fad-or-a-does-it-deliver-real-benefit-.aspx" target="_blank">pets to the workplace</a> seems to be increasing around the world," it noted.
"In the United States, a 2015 Society for Human Resource Management survey found that 8 percent of American workplaces allowed employees to bring pets to work (up from 5 percent in 2013).
"Within Australia, the uptake for large corporations has not been very high, although the types of companies that have embraced this new fur-friendly culture tend to be creative or industries such as fashion, tech, IT, media and start-ups," the Savills report noted. 
It noted the location of the workplace can also greatly affect the likelihood of the company to include pets in the office.
"We are seeing companies on the city fringe and suburban locations more open to the idea of pets in the office, as there is plenty of space in the surrounding areas for the animals to have a break outside of the office."
Savills wondered did the trend deliver real benefit to your company, or is it just a distraction? 
What are the benefits?
For the employees: Employees who bring their pets to the office often have less stress and a healthier work-life balance
For the workplace: It can be a great improvement to the workplace culture - pets are a great conversation starter and can help strengthen working relationships
For the business: Having pets in the office can encourage employees to stay longer hours and businesses have shown a lower rate of employee absenteeism. Plus, pets in the office can be a drawcard for attracting new employees
For the animals: The animals get benefits too, including being out and about (instead of cooped up at home) and socialising with new people 
Things to consider
When considering drawbacks to having animals in the workplace, the number one concern is usually allergies. Depending on the type of allergy, one way to lessen the trigger of an allergy is to ensure the pets are clean &amp; groomed. Alternatively, employees should set up pet-free zones, or keep their pet close to their own workstations
It’s also important to select the right types of pets to bring into the office – overly animated or energetic animals can serve as a distraction in the workplace  
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jchancellor-FAypfDUnLy

Perhaps not pets in the office, but workspaces need to outdo the local coffee shop

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Workplaces of the future could be inflatable. That's the vision to emerge from the “Tomorrow’s Workplace” design competition from Staples Business Advantage and Metropolis magazine.
The entries included a forecast that in 2021, the workplace may include inflatable pods set up in urban parks.
“The massive corporate office tower, usually a glass box with central air pumped in, is turning into the dinosaur from the 20th century,” said Susan S. Szenasy, publisher and editor in chief, Metropolis.
“Workplaces will become more multi-generational and multi-functional.
"One thing is sure—today's office is not your father's or mother’s office.”
Jie Zhang, is an architect and co-founder of OPT, celebrated the rapidly growing freelance economy.
Her FoAM was a combination of easily deployable inflatables that create personal mobile offices, which can be set up in a dense network of urban parks transformed from vacant parking infrastructure. The inflatables are collapsible and equipped with digital technology so workers can connect wherever they are.
<img src="/images/2016/12/07/Screen%20Shot%202016-12-07%20at%201.27.19%20PM.png" alt="" width="588" height="378">
She envisaged digital nomads, with inflatable offices that can be set up practically anywhere.
These collapsible structures are insulated, both thermally and acoustically
One of Zhang’s submitted diagrams shows a person carrying the inflatable in a shoulder bag.
The directions: “arrive,” “unroll” and “inflate.”
It was pointed out that the inflatable is actually not a new idea; it was already kind of an experimental architectural object from the ’60s by radical design groups from Italy and the University of California, Berkeley. 
The co-working trend has grown recently to total 27 million square feet of office space, which 0.7% of the total U.S. office market, but substantial for a niche that barely existed just years ago, <a href="https://www.us.jll.com/united-states/en-us/research/office/coworking-space-the-landlord-perspective" target="_blank">according to a Jones Lang LaSalle report.</a>
Companies like Regus and WeWork dominate the industry.
But WeWork didn’t exist before 2010, and now they occupy 5 million square feet, said Julia Georgules, director of research for the office sector at Jones Lang LaSalle.
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Inflatable offices of the future for digital nomads

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GUEST OBSERVER
The RBA kept its cash rate steady at 1.50 percent, as widely expected. 
The post- meeting statement also very clearly retained the RBA’s neutral policy stance. At this stage, the RBA clearly has close to no appetite to consider that it should cut rates further. 
This is despite the RBA’s own expectation that tomorrow’s Q3 GDP print will be weak, with the statement noting ‘some slowing in the year-ended growth rate is likely, before it picks up again’ (Bloomberg shows the current market consensus is for a -0.1 percent q-o-q fall in Q3 GDP). Of course, in many ways, the Q3 numbers will be old news, given that they largely pre-date the sharp jump in export prices and the election of Donald Trump. 
The RBA noted, in particular, that higher commodity prices are boosting national income. We expect the RBA to keep its cash rate on hold through 2017. 
Facts 
The RBA kept its cash rate steady today at 1.50 percent, as expected by all 27 economists in the Bloomberg survey. Just prior to the decision the market was pricing no chance of a cut. 
Implications 
Today’s RBA announcement delivered few surprises. The central bank kept its cash rate on hold at 1.50 percent, as expected, and the post-meeting statement maintained the RBA's neutral policy stance, again, as expected. The post-meeting statement repeated that leaving rates on hold would be ‘consistent with sustainable growth in the economy and achieving the inflation target over time’. 
The market focus now shifts to the Q3 GDP print for Australia. 
A weak q-o-q print is forecast (Bloomberg’s latest survey has a consensus of -0.1 percent q-o- q and 2.2 percent y-o-y), reflecting a weak run of partial indicators on the expenditure side of the accounts in recent days. The RBA only stated that ‘the annual rate of growth is likely to slow’, suggesting that they may still be expecting a positive q-o-q print. More importantly, they stated that they expect it to pick-up again soon. 
In many ways the Q3 GDP print is likely to be old news. Firstly, most of the partial indicators, including business surveys and retail sales suggest growth will bounce back in Q4. Secondly, the bulk of the ramp up in hard commodity prices is set to flow through in Q4, further boosting income growth in the quarter. Thirdly, the election of Donald Trump, rally in bond markets, ramp up in expectations of Fed hikes and strengthening in the USD (and conversely weaker AUD) have all arrived more recently. 
As a result of these more recent developments and the RBA’s continued neutral policy stance in today’s statement, the current market pricing suggests only a 20 percent chance of a 25bp cut by mid-2017 before a 20% chance of hike by end-2017. We expect the RBA to keep its cash rate on hold through 2017 and have hikes pencilled in for 2018. 
<a href="https://www.about.hsbc.com.au/hsbc-in-australia/management-team" target="_blank">PAUL BLOXHAM</a> IS CHIEF ECONOMIST (AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND) FOR HSBC. 
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2017 on hold, but pencil in RBA rate hikes for 2018: HSBC's Paul Bloxham

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Grant Harrod, the former chief executive at direct mail company Salmat, has been appointed head of the real estate network, LJ Hooker. He takes the place of Georg Chmiel.
He has signalled the evaluation and development of its online offerings as his major challenge.
LJ Hooker is a franchise network of more than 700 offices across the Asia-Pacific with more than 8000 employees.
Before Salmat, Harrod spent 13 years with business supplier Corporate Express Australia.
Greg Paramor, the chairman of LJ Hooker, announced the business services specialist yesterday.
Mr Harrod had been CEO and Managing Director of ASX-listed Salmat Pty Ltd (2009 to 2013) and CEO and Managing Director of Corporate Express Australia Ltd (2001 to late 2008). 
“We’re impressed with Grant’s comprehension of the changing real estate marketplace, and his vision for LJ Hooker aligns with our current network growth and market innovations."
Georg Chmiel remains a non-executive board member of LJ Hooker, the iconic Australian company which was founded in 1928.
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Grant Harrod appointed LJ Hooker boss

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Meriton's Harry Triguboff has commenced proceedings against the NSW government's transformation arm UrbanGrowth.
It involves grievances around UrbanGrowth excluding Meriton from the tender of two residential super lots in Sydney's north shore.
Mr Triguboff previously sued UrbanGrowth in 2015 for excluding Meriton from the tender of the 1.5-hectare properties at "Lachlan's Line", the northern end of the North Ryde Station Priority Precinct for residential development.
Now Triguboff is going to the courts to gain access to tender information and documents under the Government Information (Public Access) Act after UrbanGrowth allegedly refused access under the Act.
The Lachlan’s Line project was announced by the NSW Government in 2013 as part of the NSW Government’s North Ryde Station Precinct. The new contemporary urban village will provide approximately 2,700 homes for around 5,000 residents.
"UrbanGrowth is responsible to get the best deal for the people of NSW," Harry Triguboff said.
"I would've thought they would welcome the opportunity to show everyone what a good job they are doing," Mr Triguboff said.
The site in question, known as Lachlan’s Line in Macquarie Park, was sold by UrbanGrowth to the Chinese developer, Greenland Investment (Australia) Pty Limited.
The current proceedings come after UrbanGrowth refused to provide any documents in answer to a formal application by Meriton under the Act. 
Meriton's General Counsel, Joseph Callaghan, said the current application was not an attempt to revive the earlier Supreme Court proceedings but about "ensuring a fair and transparent tender process".
The successful bidder of the two lots, Chinese developer Greenland, has applied to join the proceedings to allegedly block Meriton's request for access.
Greenland won the tender offering $190 million. It has since commenced presales at the $800 million 800-apartment project on the combined site known as "nbh". Meriton noted no settlement funds had yet been paid by the developer for the land.
This year two further high density superlots were offered for sale as one package via an expressions of interest campaign through Colliers International.
UrbanGrowth NSW's  second stage land release at Lachlan’s Line included an affordable housing offering which must be purchased by a community housing provider, or a private developer in a joint venture or similar.
Bates Smart had prepared the concept design for around 172 apartments and the third site of 96 affordable housing apartments.
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Triguboff seeks Greenland Lachlan's Line tender documents in Urbangrowth courtcase

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/68982/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
Informal settlements house around one-quarter of the world’s urban population. This means roughly 1 billion urban dwellers live in settlements that have emerged outside of the state’s control.
The Habitat III conference in Quito in October recognised informal settlements as a critical issue for sustainable urban development. But how did informal settlements come to make up such a large part of the world’s cities?
<h2>Resorting to informal housing</h2>
Rates of urbanisation can fluctuate rapidly and be hard to predict. This makes planning for urban growth a challenge, especially in developing countries, where more than 90% of urban growth is occurring. When data or government capacity is limited, housing shortages often result. 
With formal housing too expensive or unavailable, urban migrants must improvise. Many resort to informal housing.
Informal settlements are generally undocumented or hidden on official maps. This is because the state usually sees them as temporary or illegal. 
Over the past 50 years, governments have tried to deal with these areas in a number of ways. Strategies have included denial, tolerance, formalisation, demolition and displacement. 
While efforts to improve settlements and anticipate future ones are becoming more common, the desire for eradication persists in many cities. Forced evictions in various parts of the world are putting the rights of informal settlement dwellers at risk.
Over time, however, it has been recognised that poverty and inequality cannot be simply eradicated through demolition or eviction. In the developing world, one-third of the urban population now lives in slums. In Africa, the proportion is 62%. 
Many cities are looking for alternatives that formalise these areas through incremental, on-site upgrading. In addition to offering effective protection against forced evictions, it is critical to provide access to basic services, public facilities and inclusive public spaces.
We need to adopt integrated approaches that cut across urban scales and disciplines. These need to involve stakeholders from government, citizens and other organisations. Design thinking is essential in this process to meet the challenges of urbanisation.
<h2>The role of the New Urban Agenda</h2>
The Habitat III conference adopted a New Urban Agenda for the United Nations. This document presents a road map for sustainable urban development until Habitat IV in 2036.
While the quality of life for some informal settlement dwellers has improved over recent decades, growing inequality pushes more people into informal housing. As a result, the growth rate of informal settlements often outstrips upgrading processes. 
The UN Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) was one of the key agencies involved in Habitat III. Since Habitat II, UN-Habitat has worked extensively on housing and slum upgrading. The New Urban Agenda incorporates lessons from this process. 
An example is the need for innovative small investment models for informal housing and their inhabitants’ transport needs. The agenda also acknowledges the informal settlements located in hazard-prone areas. Their inhabitants often need more help with reducing the risks and building resilience. 
<h2>The way forward</h2>
Dealing with informal settlements is an issue of inequality. This inequality is both social and spatial in nature, across cities worldwide.
It is problematic that spatial thinking does not have a high profile in the New Urban Agenda. While urban design by itself cannot reduce social inequality and urban poverty, much can be learned from cutting-edge practices that integrate design thinking into upgrading informal settlements. 
One key lesson is that incremental housing (a step-by-step process of upgrading) can be a critical part of the solution. Incrementalism allows informal housing to be adapted over time. It also means community engagement is central to governments’ handling of informal settlements. 
Another learning is that evidence-based, multi-scale and multidisciplinary approaches are essential to tackle the challenges of informal settlements. Such integrated approaches intervene at multiple scales to provide a network of public open space and access to affordable public transport and facilities.
Most informal settlements – but for a few exceptions located in hazardous areas – need to be upgraded incrementally and on the same site.
<h2>Are we prepared?</h2>
When it comes to the critical role of design thinking in the process of urbanisation, built environment professionals need to be prepared to tackle the challenge of informal settlements. 
Incremental and on-site upgrading relies on a sophisticated understanding of informal settlement forms and adaptations. 
Universities have a key role in equipping future built environment professionals with the skills and knowledge needed to meet the real challenges of urbanisation. Informal settlements are here to stay. 
To better integrate these settlements into cities globally, they need to be recognised – politically, socially and spatially – and made visible through the gaze of mapping and research.
 
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/hesam-kamalipour-288498" target="_blank">Hesam Kamalipour</a> is PhD candidate and research assistant in Urban Design, University of Melbourne.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alexei-trundle-11956" target="_blank">Alexei Trundle</a> is PhD candidate, Australian-German Climate &amp; Energy College, University of Melbourne.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/andre-stephan-14991" target="_blank">André Stephan </a>is postdoctoral research fellow, University of Melbourne.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/hayley-henderson-288490" target="_blank">Hayley Henderson</a> is PhD candidate in Urban Planning, University of Melbourne.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/melanie-lowe-288493" target="_blank">Melanie Lowe</a> is research fellow, McCaughey VicHealth Community Wellbeing Unit, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne.
All are authors for The Conversation.
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When planning falls short: the challenges of informal settlements

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/69868/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
Peter Corrigan died last Thursday morning, the first day of summer.
He was 77. He had worked as an architect and theatre designer from the early 1960s, and from 1974 with his collaborator and life partner Maggie Edmond. Their partnership saw through a succession of major projects, each with the intensity of a last design, and often bringing storms of controversy. 
Corrigan’s maxim for his many students was simple. As Vivian Mitsogianni has written, it was: lead a life of integrity. For students and architects, the greatest compliment he could pay anyone was to say they had “a commitment to architecture”.
He supported younger musicians, artists, fashion designers, as well as mentoring a generation of architecture students: “these kids need support”.
He was famous for attending every exhibition at RMIT University’s gallery, and he was unswerving in his dedication to RMIT University, being a major factor in its current status as an architecture school. In his architecture history lectures, which often ran for three to four hours and were supported by hundreds of images, he would trace the principles and the lapses of one modern architect after another: they were architects and dramatic characters, with all hopes and disappointments embedded in them. 
Unlike so many Australian architects, who tended to see architecture generated in some overseas metropolis as a dependable standard of excellence, he saw such “centres” as contested and unstable environments. He placed architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn in what was to us an unfamiliar context of American cultural anxiety. Correspondingly, he totally rejected the Australian cultural cringe.
He saw so much through a prism of integrity, and would pull most of us up short if he sensed any backsliding, glossing or easy options. He waged perpetual war on fuzzy thinking; for example challenging the general assumption of Australia’s “suburban wilderness”.
He would be thinking, all the time. In architecture at least, Corrigan did not make a customary intellectual’s progress: from a youthful enactment of someone else’s theory or passion, towards a fixed pattern of thought and certainties that defined their identity. 
He was never a real adherent of any school or movement. Integrity, and in building design a commitment to architecture, was really the only irreducible element.
<h2>Complexity and contradiction</h2>
Corrigan embraced architecture’s complexity and contradiction, rather than the widespread desire in architectural modernism to simplify tasks and to purify form. The modernist movement in the 50s and 60s embraced industrialism and scientism, demanding refined and replicable forms. This led to such absurdities as architects complaining that the Sydney Opera House was flawed because it didn’t offer an industrially reproducible model.
But Corrigan had already rejected this by the early- to mid-1960s, by the time he was producing his first built designs. He recognised, as did an increasing group of architects, that the complexity of modern living often defied refined form and absolute resolution; posing problems and demanding imagery that polished architectural beauty simply ignored.
He became fascinated by the haunted realms of Old Europe after collaborating with Australian director Barrie Kosky on the Dybbuk Trilogy plays in the early 1990s. His Building 8 at RMIT University, the Library and Humanities Building (1991-5) has winding corridors and internal “streets” that echoed Prague or Lviv, or the old Jewish quarters of the Vienna Neubau. 
The lift foyers spoke of the tiles, colours and raucous movement in the concourses of Berlin U-bahn stations, especially in Berlin’s doomed prewar theatre districts. Externally, Building 8 looms over Swanston Street as a great polychrome folly, tumultuously Gothic in bearing (though without explicitly Gothic detailing); capped by canted rooftop “faces” and quoifs in Colorbond steel, animated in colour and facial expression. 
The nearest counterparts are Antoni Gaudi’s houses and apartment blocks in Barcelona: triumphant follies confronting an often grim industrial city. 
Corrigan would constantly crash ideas and architectural themes together, often in oblique, smudged or “momentary” images and glimpses. If he faced an issue, as his friend and early champion Norman Day said, he would circle round it in a kind of spiral: I found this constantly, as he would draw getting closer to the point by telling anecdotes, parables, in a sense.
These stories were mostly of his own and other people’s incredible luck; he never ceased to be amazed by these tales when recounting them himself. During discussions in libraries, pubs or his little office he would associate an immediate issue with a broader point, and illustrate it with a vivid account of some miraculous occurrence.
Among these he would often recall being sacked from a succession of mighty American architectural firms for, as he put it, “inappropriate enthusiasm” and “asking too many questions!” In one instance he was so fired up he started sketching foliage over an exhibition drawing of one of legendary architect Paul Rudolph’s prize projects. Unfortunately, Rudolph was standing behind him at the time. 
This love of storytelling was reflected and supported by his huge library: 3,000 or more books, which which he was invariably generous. When he moved back to his house in his last year, as Maggie Edmond told me, he was reading constantly. 
<h2>Embracing Australia</h2>
Though he lectured on the greatest of modern architects overseas, Corrigan’s crucial guides were often major Australian architects: Frederick Romberg, to whose raw concrete buildings he eagerly took friends; Roy Grounds, long criticised for the monumental expression and the regional referencing in his Victorian Arts Centre. 
I recall how the McCartney house in Kew, 1981, reshaped my own assessment of 1900s Federation architecture. It brought out the diagonal force implicit or latent in so many of Australia’s suburban house plans, and in so doing became an absolutely precarious arrangement of shapes, which are almost quarrelling with each other.
A polygonal tower bumped against a living room wing that cranked round in facets. The hooded upper windows seemed to form a toothy mouth. The main hall was dominated by a massive crystal chandelier – and what was wrong with a bit of domestic aspiration? Were Australian buildings always to know their place in some divine order?
This sense of “movement and energy”, as Corrigan put it, was at the core of Corrigan’s design. Almost all of Edmond and Corrigan’s buildings expressed mobility and with a constant theatrical flourish.
The Athan House (1988), a v-shaped semi-rural residence with an open triangular courtyard in the centre, brought home to me many of these the dramatic possibilities in a completed building. Instead of a continuous veranda around the house, a series of ramps, walkways and bridges almost stutter out into the bush outside.
The house wings doubled back on themselves, and you would see another room through two windows with an external space in between, so the house interior becomes the compressed and half-viewed proximities of inner city apartments. 
Architecture could be loaded with one item after another – the sky was the limit, because good architecture did not always have to be perfected in simplification. 
When I took students to Edmond and Corrigan’s controversial Resurrection Parish, visited by architects and students from all over the world, the Parish school featured the bright 19th-century polychrome stripes of so many Melbourne railway stations or inner suburban terraces. 
He embraced the suburban bungalow and veranda; the Parish church featured bay windows and and a broad, Vatican II nave. A wide veranda is set in a blowsy, slouching curve. 
<h2>Inspiring a movement</h2>
This was now a realm in which Australian architects could now stay home and in Corrigan’s words “bite and fight”: you didn’t have to go overseas to do “proper” architecture. Your duty, he felt, was to stay in Australia, immersed in its particular complexity, and to sort it out here. 
His influence meant that throughout the 70s and 80s young architects would more often stay on in Melbourne and open offices. In contrast, Sydney absorbed bright young architects into established offices, tending to assimilate them into wider and less queried traditions.
Corrigan was a fulcrum in the 1970s to 1990s transformation in Australian architecture, arguably the most radical shift since the Federation period of 1890-1910, or the full surge of architectural modernism between 1930 and 1950. 
In so being, Peter Corrigan was also at the forefront of a new movement of recognisably Melburnian style that emerged in the 90s. Increasingly foreign architects, often bemused, gravitated to Melbourne, lured by the creativity and innovation of the moment.
Despite his strength of feeling for Australia, he spent significant time overseas. There was the United States itself: Corrigan sought out a Yale degree when the almost universal Australian path was toward British training. When he went to Asia it was in the totally unfavoured year of 1963, through Laos, then at war; through Vietnam, soon to be embroiled in war, to Japan – to study Noh theatre.
Despite Peter’s rejection of orthodoxy, he never relinquished one long-standing myth in architectural modernism: the reforming architect as hero. He gravitated to architects who were often isolated or marginalised, but used their designs to project their ideas into the world.
In many senses this idea looked creaky in the 1980s, in part through feminist critique of the notion of “heroes”, in part through the necessary scepticism and caution of historians and critics. 
He wanted so many of his own students to become heroes too, and this was part of the pursuit of integrity. 
From that broad base of intelligence and enthusiasm, it was natural that his great personal quality was generosity – even if it was sometimes alloyed with a lightning-sharp tongue. Those who really disappointed him dwelled in some eternal Coventry. 
As Jennifer Hocking wrote in 1995, there was scarcely a Melbourne architect coming through in the 1970s and 1980s who was not affected in some way by Corrigan’s example. Among overseas friends were Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Patrick McCaughey and later, after a reconciliation of sorts, Paul Rudolph. 
All these people, and so many more, I sense will gather, and remember. Peter Corrigan was raised as an Irish (though half-German) Catholic, and into this others read all manner of Irishness and wayward madness. 
Architects in both Melbourne and in other cities, who did not see things as Corrigan did, would say, “well, that’s very Melbourne”, or “the Mad Irish were at it again”. 
But in a most surprising way, Corrigan’s constant search had a streak of the dissenting sternness of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress:
"Then fancies fly away, He’ll fear not what men say, He’ll labour night and day, To be a pilgrim."
 
Conrad Hamann is associate professor of Architectural History, RMIT University and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/conrad-hamann-320980" target="_blank">here</a>.
 
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Remembering Peter Corrigan: a life of movement, energy and integrity

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/69474/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
Asian currencies hit a seven year low in November, on Donald Trump’s election and the potential for his policies to spur US inflation and bond yields.
Investors who fanned out across emerging markets in recent years are now bringing their money back to America.
The steep drops, and the seeming inability of some central banks to do much about it, has led to worries of a financial crisis. Some columnistsare even drawing comparisons to the currency meltdown that preceded the 1997-1998 Asian Financial Crisis (AFC). 
The AFC’s impacts were dramatic. It led to the sudden collapse of President Suharto’s regime in Indonesia and triggered the 1998 Russian bond default. Everyday economic life was upended as the five worst hit economies saw unemployment surge, inflation balloon, and investment as a share of GDP plunge more than 10%. 
It took five years for GDP per capita to reach parity with pre-AFC levels. Austerity was imposed to pay for large financial sector bailouts, in Indonesia the net cost of rescuing the financial sector exceeded 40% of GDP.
But much has changed since 1997. China’s rise means an increasingly multipolar economic order, new regional partnerships are in place, and central bankers and policymakers are less likely to repeat some prior mistakes. Even if a crisis were to materialise, it would look quite different from that of two decades ago. 
<h2>What triggered the AFC?</h2>
The AFC began in July 1997, when Thailand gave in to speculators and devalued the Baht. Many Asian nations had long either pegged or closely tethered their currencies to the US dollar. After the baht, speculators quickly turned on the currencies of Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea. To fight the attacks on their exchange rates, central banks had to sell dollars (Thailand) or abruptly raise interest rates (Indonesia), but eventually caved - sometimes after depleting foreign exchange reserves - and allowed their currencies to fall. 
The exchange rate declines wreaked havoc by driving up the cost of the money private companies had borrowed from abroad. Many were already struggling, amid an economic slowdown, with large foreign exchange borrowings and poor investments in overheated sectors like property. Once currencies floated, the companies’ flight to the US Dollar put pressure on domestic banks. Financial sectors became rapidly insolvent, triggering state interventions and bailouts. 
The use of fixed or managed exchange rate regimes meant central banks assumed the risks of sudden foreign exchange movements. This perceived security further prompted capital inflows and resulted in real exchange rate appreciation and asset bubbles. Hedging, an investment tool limiting the risk of exchange rate changes damaging the price of an asset, was not widespread. 
Governance problems and “crony capitalism” exacerbated these issues. The Indonesian central bank governor, for example, was part of cabinet and had little power to resist instructions to pump liquidity into ailing banks. In the end, US$14 billion was pumped into an insolvent banking sector and state auditors later found more than 60% of the funds were misused. 
<h2>A lot has changed since the AFC</h2>
It was in the reaction to the AFC that a lot of changes were made. In return for cash infusions, these countries committed to IMF supervision and extensive programmes of economic reform and liberalisation. In addition to financial sector restructuring, the programs also included “structural reforms,” such as dismantled barriers to foreign investment and liberalised trade regimes. 
From Indonesia, the IMF demanded dismantling of the monopolies and rent-creation schemes at the heart of the regime; from South Korea, it demanded large layoffs and union-busting measures. In both cases a back and forth between leaders and the IMF played out in real time as the currencies continued to fall and financial sector insolvency accelerated.
Many of these countries have also built up huge foreign exchange reserves over the past decade. Banking supervision has also greatly improved, and countries like Indonesia have created genuinely independent banking supervisory agencies and monetary authorities. 
Regional financial integration has also deepened, with initiatives like the Chiang Mai Agreement, a framework adopted by members of ASEAN as well as China, Japan, and South Korea, for bilateral currency swaps and repurchase agreements. 
China also has expanded its role, including a web of bilateral currency swap agreements with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. These Chinese renminbi (RMB) swaps are designed to facilitate trade – the RMB is the world’s second-largest trade finance currency – but swapped RMB can be converted to USD through offshore RMB trading centres and have been used to provide emergency liquidity to countries facing currency challenges (Pakistan in 2013, Argentina in 2014).
Central banks have reacted to the dollar’s sudden strength by announcing currency interventions, discussing rate hikes, and pressuring banks to curb “speculative” trading. China has announced closer scrutiny of some outbound transactions and Malaysian authorities have asked banks to limit some investments used for offshore ringgit hedging. This has prompted fretting among financial analysts who recall that Malaysia imposed some capital controls - effectively preventing ringgit from being exchanged and transferred out of the country - during the AFC. 
<h2>Going forward</h2>
This is not to rule out a crisis (although markets may well reevaluate assumptions about Trumpnomics), as the end to years of plentiful dollars will have an impact. Debt levels are higher than pre-AFC levels, and foreign currency-denominated emerging market debts have more than doubled in the last ten years. Instead, global economic polarities are much changed because of China’s emergence, weakness in Europe, and isolationism in the US. Any crisis would play out differently than in 1997/98. 
Economic managers are far less in thrall to economic orthodoxies as they were in the 1990s to the “Washington Consensus” and are therefore likely to blaze their own trails. The IMF, which remains the global lender of last resort, has also fine tuned its approach and is far less prescriptive than after the years of heady growth during the 1990s.
Whereas Malaysia during the AFC imposed capital controls and snubbed the IMF, just across the Malacca Strait Indonesia provided free movement of capital, which allowed the mass exit of both foreign and domestic capital. Combined with efforts to provide liquidity to the banks, the absence of capital controls undermined the government’s ability to carry out monetary policy. Many countries prudently used some capital controls during the global financial crisis, and as a result, some mild to moderate capital controls are likely.
A final variable is China, which despite its own currency challenges is keen to further the end of the US’s sole leadership of the international financial order. The aforementioned currency swaps, though likely insufficient for seeing off a systemic, regional crisis, show its ambitions to position itself as emerging markets’ preferred economic partner. 
Efforts like the recent purchase of US$4 billion in assets from Malaysia’s disgraced 1MDB further shows an opportunistic approach to emerging geostrategic events. As a result, the likes of the IMF and friends, which dictated large, condition-laden bailouts in return for AFC assistance, are no longer the sole port of call for a beleaguered economy, and any post-crisis order, much shaped by these institutions after the AFC, might end up quite different.
Matthew Busch is PhD candidate at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/matthew-busch-284580" target="_blank">here</a>.
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Don't expect a rerun of the Asian Financial Crisis

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Bec and Lleyton Hewitt have listed their little-used Kenthurst acreage for sale. 
They seem set to spend much more of their time these days in Melbourne.
The 100 square home with will no doubt sell for close to $5 million through Guardian Realty agent Gavin Weekley.
When the Kenthurst home sold in 2006 for $3 million it bettered the record for a two-hectare property by $350,000.
But the Hewitts offering remains a single-level, six-bedroom home with resort-style pool that has been overtaken by grander homes that have fetched as much as $6 million. There was a $3.9 million sale next door earlier this year.
The marketing say it has a free-flowing layout spanning more than 100 squares.
"Splashes of vibrant colour are blended with custom timber finishes and hardwood floors, set against a verdant backdrop of manicured gardens and lush lawn," it advises.
The former world number one recently relisted his Melbourne penthouse at $10 million with offers due this week.
Hewitt, who has been based in the Bahamas with his family, had rarely used the St Kilda Road pad until this year.
It is on the 19th floor of Yve tower.
It has been<a href="https://www.domain.com.au/property/for-sale/apartment-unit-flat/vic/melbourne/?adid=2011370007&amp;sp=1" target="_blank"> listed by Sotheby’s International Realty</a>, fully furnished.
Hewitt bought the apartments on level 19 and 20 for $8.325 million in 2004 at 578 St Kilda Road.
He then took around four years creating the 710 square metre internal space with six bedrooms and six bathrooms. There is also 443 square metres external space, Sotheby agent Phillip French said,
Bec and Lleyton Hewitt offloaded their three-storey Palm Beach retreat at $4.63 million in 2014.
The Palm Beach Road house cost $4.4 million in 2005.
Th property purchase was just two weeks before tying the knot. 
Bec and Lleyton were both big celebrities in their own right before they combined their star power, kicking off a whirlwind romance in 2005.
He was the then Wimbledon champion and she was a star of the enduring soapie, Home and Away.
The couple, now parents to three kids, Mia, Cruz and Ava, bought a home in Nassau in 2009 for $3.8 million.
Hewitt sold his former Adelaide home for $2,185,600 after six years on the market, for much less than the $3.2 million he paid for it in 2003.
In 2005 Hewitt was the youngest on the BRW Young Rich list with a net worth of $30 million.
The latest listing caps off a busy time for Bec too as her parents' $2.5 million Oakfield property - where Bec grew up - was sold earlier this year after three decades ownership.
This article appeared in the Saturday Daily Telegraph. 
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Lleyton Hewitt lists Sydney acreage

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Just two days before the selling season turned to summer, Sydney's most expensive one bedroom beach house sold at Palm Beach.
The Modern House agency had a $1.55 million asking price on the highly contemporary offering which was actually built in the late 1990s.
All up it measures a modest 85 square metre internal space, plus there's an additional 80 square metres of external deck and terracing.
It was custom designed for photographer Greg Barrett by Furio Valich at Gordon + Valich Architects, in partnership with Belinda Koopman Architects in its bushland Cynthea Road location.
The house was the winner of the RAIA Merit Award for Housing in 1999 with its Sydney School architectural influences obvious given the use of the site's plentiful sandstone and angophora.
The one bedroom house is made up of a main, open living and dining space on the ground floor and a small upper floor bedroom.
"Belinda and Jim Koopman’s design succeeds on all counts," said the selling agent Marcus Lloyd-Jones at Modern House.
Barrett paid $300,000 in 1990 for the land.
Sydney's highest known one bedroom apartment sale was secured by the fishing guru Rex Hunt who sold his 75 sq m Macquarie Street, Quay Grand apartment for $2.05 million earlier this year.
Architect Domenic Alvaro’s strikingly narrow, five storey Surry Hills house sold for $1.88 million in 2014, ranking still as Sydney's priciest custom built one bedder.
This article first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph.
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Priciest one bedroom beach house sold for record price

Investors may soon find themselves with fewer reasons to buy established property and more incentives to look towards the new apartment market.

Proposed changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions would see new and off-the-plan apartments retain access to the tax benefits, while established properties would miss out, creating a clear advantage for buyers purchasing newly built housing.

The policy direction aligns with what many developers have been saying for several years. Australia needs more housing supply, and governments are increasingly looking for ways to encourage investment into new stock rather than existing homes.

The challenge for investors is that suitable product is becoming harder to find.

For much of the last decade, one-bedroom apartments were the cornerstone of investor demand. They offered a lower entry price, strong rental appeal, and were a common feature across most apartment developments.

Today, the development pipeline looks very different.

Across both New South Wales and South East Queensland, developers are increasingly targeting owner-occupiers and downsizers, delivering larger two, three and four-bedroom apartments in response to changing buyer preferences. While one-bedroom apartments still exist, they now form a much smaller portion of many new projects.

That shift has created a shortage of investor-friendly stock, particularly in well-located projects close to transport, employment hubs and lifestyle amenity.

At the same time, rising apartment prices have pushed many new developments beyond the reach of traditional investors. On the Gold Coast and across South East Queensland, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find new apartments priced around the $1 million mark, particularly those offering strong rental fundamentals and long-term growth prospects.

We've rounded up four new apartment developments where investors can still secure a foothold in the market for around $1 million or less.

<h2 data-end="1140" data-start="844">Flourish Soleira</h2>

<h2>Priced from: $1.07 million</h2>

Popular Palm Beach developer Sherpa is soon to officially launch its newest local apartment development, Flourish Soleira.

The one-bedroom apartments in the building were only offered to first home buyers rather than investors, and all of those have been snapped up. The two-bedroom apartments will start from $1.07 million, and the three-bedrooms, still a good investment given the popularity of Palm Beach for owner-occupiers, starting at $2,045,000.

&nbsp;

[smartcode_project:default project_id=150017 project_image_fid=370964]

Flourish Soliera will comprise 153 apartments across two buildings, connected by a skybridge, the first ever delivered in the suburb.

True to Sherpa's booming Flourish brand of apartment projects, Flourish Soleira will have extensive rooftop amenity across both buildings including a&nbsp;wellness centre with gym, work from home, yoga, pilates, a&nbsp;heated pool, private dining rooms, pizza oven and barbecues, basketball court, and golf simulator.

<h2>Corallo, Palm Beach</h2>

Priced from: $841,500

Nearby Flourish Soleira is Changfa Group's beachfront-inspired Corallo development. They still have some one-bedroom apartments remaining, priced from $841,500.

The 105-apartment project on Palm Beach Avenue is otherwise dominated by larger two and three-bedroom residences, many of which are aimed at owner-occupiers and downsizers.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=112194 project_image_fid=808]

For investors, the appeal lies in Palm Beach's continued transformation from a laid-back beachside suburb into one of the Gold Coast's most sought-after residential markets. Residents at Corallo will be within walking distance of Palm Beach's surf beaches, the recreational amenity of Tallebudgera Creek, and the increasingly popular collection of cafes, restaurants and boutique retailers along the suburb's central dining precinct.

<h2>Corner House, Stones Corner</h2>

<h2>Priced from: $880,000</h2>

One of only two Brisbane apartment developments to make the list with prices under $1 million is DeMartini Fletcher's Corner House development in Stones Corner.

One-bedroom apartments start from $880,000 within the 88-apartment development, providing investors with exposure to one of Brisbane's most established inner-south locations.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=149098 project_image_fid=330594]

Stones Corner has long been supported by strong tenant demand due to its proximity to major employment and education destinations. The suburb sits less than five kilometres from Brisbane's CBD and is within easy reach of the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Greenslopes Private Hospital, Queensland Children's Hospital and several university campuses.

The project's location within a walkable urban village environment, surrounded by retail, dining and public transport infrastructure, continues to attract both professionals and healthcare workers seeking accommodation close to work.

Parkdrive Apartments, Chermside

Priced from: $749,000

The most affordable apartments across Brisbane's new and off the plan market are in Chermside where developer AusDev is selling one-bedroom apartments from $749,000, and two-beds from $929,000, at its recently launched Parkdrive development.

The development is strategically positioned in one of Brisbane's largest employment and retail precincts, placing residents within easy walking distance of Westfield Chermside, The Prince Charles Hospital, St Vincent's Private Hospital Northside and the suburb's major bus interchange.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=152125 project_image_fid=363782]

Already under construction and scheduled for completion in early 2028, Parkdrive benefits from Chermside's ongoing evolution into Brisbane's northern metropolitan centre. The suburb continues to attract significant public and private investment, supporting population growth and underpinning long-term rental demand.

For investors focused on yield and tenant depth, the combination of healthcare, retail and transport infrastructure within close proximity provides a strong foundation for occupancy and rental performance.

Joel Robinson

Investors to turn to new apartments after Federal Government changes spark hunt for Queensland's best $1 million apartments

A mix of Gold Coast locals, fly-in, fly-out purchasers from Sydney and Melbourne, and Brisbane-based families has driven early sales success at Broadbeach's newest apartment tower, Lumara.

The 26-level project, a joint venture between builder-developer 5Point Projects and Bourke Projects, comprises just 37 luxury residences and is attracting a buyer profile that is looking for exclusivity, above the most amenity-rich suburb on the Gold Coast.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=150454 project_image_fid=364156]

Jamie Bourke, Director of Bourke Projects, says every buyer secured so far intends to use Lumara as a lock-up-and-leave residence, combining holiday use with the ability to work remotely when required.

“The size of the apartments, both half- and full-floor options, and the different zones within the floorplans, lends itself perfectly to dedicated home office setups and multi-generational family holidays,” Bourke says.

That flexibility has become a key drawcard for affluent buyers seeking a second residence on the Gold Coast without sacrificing the ability to conduct business away from their primary home base.

The absence of holiday letting within the building has also resonated strongly with purchasers.

“This type of buyer doesn't need to generate holiday rental income,” Bourke says. “They're paying for exclusivity, privacy and certainty around who their neighbours are.”

[smartcode_project:default project_id=150454 project_image_fid=366491]

The strong demand comes amid broader shifts in the high-end apartment market following the Federal Budget announcements in May.

“We were already seeing strong enquiry from high-net-worth buyers, but that has only accelerated since the policy changes,” Bourke says.

“A lot of those buyers are looking to place more capital into premium lifestyle assets rather than investment-grade stock that has been targeted by the Federal Government.”

[smartcode_project:default project_id=150454 project_image_fid=366486]

Designed by Cottee Parker, Lumara adopts a slender, sculpted form with an emphasis on natural materials suited to its beachfront setting. The architectural approach draws on coastal influences, with a palette of stone, timber and concrete selected for durability and the ability to weather over time.

Apartments are limited to three and four-bedroom configurations, with a maximum of two residences per floor through the mid-levels and a selection of full-floor and dual-level homes in the upper levels. All apartments are oriented to the north to maximise natural light, cross-ventilation and views across the ocean, city skyline and hinterland.

A two-level amenity offering is positioned high within the building on levels 20 and 21, conceived as a sky wellness retreat. Facilities include a magnesium pool, spa, sauna and steam rooms, alongside more social spaces such as a private dining room, resident lounge, workspaces and outdoor barbecue areas integrated with landscaped greenery.

The uppermost levels are reserved for larger-format residences, including several full-floor homes and a dual-level penthouse with its own private wellness features and recreational spaces.

&nbsp;

To give buyers confidence, 5Point and Bourke commenced construction ahead of the apartments launching to the market, a sure-fire way to prove they mean business, and the building will be delivered. They are targeting a 2028 completion date.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=150454]

Locals, interstate holiday makers, drive early sales at Lumara, Broadbeach's newest luxury apartment tower

Often when it comes to purchasing property, the biggest barrier to entry is the deposit. Buyers of established homes typically aim for a 20 per cent deposit to avoid the added cost of Lenders Mortgage Insurance, while most property transactions require around a 10 per cent deposit when contracts are exchanged.

The off-the-plan market works differently, with buyers typically paying a deposit during construction and settling the balance upon completion. As completion approaches at <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/fabbrica-fitzroy-369-gore-street-fitzroy-vic-3065">Fabbrica Fitzroy</a>, developer <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/pace-development-group">Pace</a> is making it easier for buyers to secure a residence through a deposit-matching incentive. Purchasers need only contribute a five per cent deposit*, with Pace matching the remaining five per cent.

The offer comes as Pace unveils a completed display apartment and townhouse, now available for inspection by appointment ahead of the project's Spring completion.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=139552 project_image_fid=371009]

Designed by <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/architects/sjb-architects">SJB</a> with interiors by <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/interior-designers/winwood-mckenzie-architecture">Winwood Mckenzie</a> and landscaping by <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/landscape-architect/acre">Acre</a>, Fabbrica draws on Fitzroy’s industrial and manufacturing history, incorporating references to the former Argyle Shirt Factory and Life Savers Confectionery Company that once occupied the site.

The development comprises 85 residences, spanning low-maintenance apartments through to larger-format townhouses with private street access and double lock-up garages, a relatively uncommon offering in Fitzroy’s higher-density apartment market.

Pace says the project has been designed to appeal to buyers seeking inner-city convenience without sacrificing space, flexibility, or amenity.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=139552 project_image_fid=371016]

Inside the residences, Winwood Mckenzie has focused on adaptable layouts and integrated detailing, with features including custom joinery, and concealed storage solutions. The material palette leans into warm, tactile finishes intended to complement the building’s industrial architectural language.

Fabbrica’s rooftop amenity is a key part of the project offering. Spanning around 800 sqm, the communal rooftop includes a private dining room, communal kitchen, lounge spaces, work-from-home zones, and outdoor dining areas overlooking the Melbourne CBD skyline.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=139552 project_image_fid=371017]

Landscape architecture studio Acre has introduced a layered rooftop garden designed to soften the urban setting while creating a more communal environment for residents.

The Fitzroy location also positions residents within walking distance of Brunswick Street, Smith Street, parks, cafés, galleries, and public transport, while remaining only minutes from Melbourne’s CBD. The project has an enviable Walk Score of 96.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=139552 project_image_fid=371025]

Pace, which is also delivering the project as builder, has developed more than 100 projects across Melbourne over the past three decades. The vertically integrated approach has become increasingly common among developers seeking greater control over construction delivery amid broader market pressures affecting the apartment sector.

The strikingly contemporary Gore Street development is now around 70 per cent complete, with purchasers expected to move into their new homes in Spring 2026. A limited number of residences remain available under the current deposit match offer.

*Conditions apply in relation to the deposit match offer.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=139552]

Pace offers five per cent deposit match at Fabbrica Fitzroy ahead of Spring completion

Sydney developer Hyecorp's roots on the Lower North Shore stretch back three generations, and that deep understanding of the market continues to shape where and how it develops today.

From high-rise towers to boutique apartment projects, the family-run developer has built its reputation by focusing on a part of Sydney it knows intimately. Founded by Michael Abolakian in the early 1990s, Hyecorp is now led by his sons Stephen, Troy and Patrick.

Stephen Abolakian, joint managing director alongside Troy, has spent more than two decades in the business, overseeing development, planning, finance, marketing and sales.

Abolakian says the developer's disciplined focus on where it chooses to operate has been, and continues to be, one of Hyecorp's greatest strengths.

“We know the buyer profile exceptionally well,” Abolakian says.

“The demographics between places like Willoughby, Chatswood, St Leonards and Roseville are very similar. There are nuances between suburbs and projects, but culturally and from a buyer perspective, there’s a strong overlap.”

That buyer has historically been overwhelmingly owner-occupier driven.

Unlike many Sydney apartment developers that have traditionally relied heavily on investor demand, Hyecorp’s projects have typically attracted downsizers, upsizers, rightsizers and family owner-occupiers seeking long-term homes rather than short-term investments.

“Historically, investors have been a much smaller portion of our demand profile,” Abolakian says.

“We design for owner-occupiers. We don’t design for yield, we design for comfort, amenity, family living and long-term usability.”

That philosophy extends well beyond apartment layouts.

From landscaping and communal gardens to shared amenities and circulation spaces, Hyecorp’s developments are designed around how people actually live, something Abolakian believes has become increasingly important in Sydney’s apartment market.

“There was probably a period where having an approved project in market was enough,” he says.

“There wasn’t as much competition and if you built it, buyers would come. That’s no longer the case.”

“There’s more supply in the pipeline now, particularly with TOD precincts and low and mid-rise reforms opening up opportunities across Sydney. Buyers have more choice, so if you get the product wrong, they’ll simply go elsewhere.”

[smartcode_project:default project_id=110379 project_image_fid=311393]

The shift has forced developers to become more sophisticated in how they approach apartment design, particularly as owner-occupier expectations continue to rise.

For Hyecorp, that means thinking beyond who the buyer is today and designing for who they may become in five or 10 years' time.

“People buying now often aren’t moving in for several years,” Abolakian says.

“You might have a young couple buying today, but by the time they move in they may have children, older children, or changing lifestyle needs. You’ve got to think about how families evolve.”

That thinking also shapes Hyecorp’s approach to amenity, which positions wellness at the forefront.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=149594 project_image_fid=362634]

While resort-style facilities have become increasingly common marketing tools across Sydney apartment developments, Abolakian says the challenge is ensuring amenities are genuinely usable and appropriate for the scale of the project.

“If amenities are done right, they can materially improve the living experience,” he says, adding however that if you&nbsp;overdo it or get it wrong, you can end up with facilities nobody uses that simply create ongoing strata costs.”

That balance is something Hyecorp is aiming to strike with projects like Roseville Avenue, one of the group's upcoming Lower North Shore developments, which Abolakian describes as bringing a resort-style living experience into a metropolitan setting.

“It’s about creating something that feels special without being excessive,” he says.

“Good gardens, quality apartments, thoughtful amenity. Creating that resort feeling in a metro location.”

<img alt="Hyecorp" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="13c4c0f3-b1b7-44cf-9344-0b3d1d07797a" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-06-02%20at%2012.14.57%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=9OLWjyj2bYkDV35F78WJnyMSPfc2bJ2z" />

The focus on owner-occupier product comes as Sydney’s apartment market continues to navigate a difficult development environment.&nbsp;For Hyecorp, maintaining an in-house operating model across construction, sales, marketing and development management has become increasingly important in navigating that environment.

“We’ve always believed in keeping a lot of the process in-house,” Abolakian says.

“It creates efficiencies, but it also creates quality control. You can make faster decisions and ensure the end product stays aligned with the original vision.”

Despite the challenges, Abolakian believes demand for quality owner-occupier apartments across Sydney remains strong beneath the surface, particularly across established Lower North Shore suburbs where downsizers continue to seek new housing options close to existing communities.

“There are definitely people waiting,” he says.

“Once some of the broader uncertainty settles, whether that’s the global environment or some of the local economic noise, I think the right projects will perform very strongly.”

Hyecorp currently has three residential developments on the market across Sydney’s Lower North Shore.&nbsp;Audrey, St Leonards, positioned opposite Newlands Park, is nearing completion and preparing to welcome its first residents, with the project now almost sold out.

Hyecorp has also recently launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/celine-chatswood-37-archer-street-chatswood-nsw-2067">Celine Chatswood</a>, an architectural tower, while continuing to deliver&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/juliet-roseville-64-pacific-highway-roseville-nsw-2069">Juliet Roseville</a>, a more boutique scale of development with just 34 apartments.

Why Hyecorp continues to back Sydney's Lower North Shore apartment market

South East Queensland’s apartment market is entering a new phase defined by rising prices, constrained affordability, and mounting pressure on the construction pipeline, according to RPM Group’s latest SEQ Apartments &amp; Townhomes Market Report.

The May 2026 report highlights a widening divide between what buyers can afford and what developers can viably deliver, with detached house prices continuing to push more buyers toward apartments across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and the Sunshine Coast.

RPM says Brisbane’s median house price has reached around $1.5 million, accelerating the shift toward higher-density housing as buyers are increasingly priced out of the detached market.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=135094 project_image_fid=356540]

Median unit prices rose across all three major SEQ markets in the March quarter. Brisbane City recorded the strongest annual growth, with median unit prices climbing 21 per cent to $862,000, while the Gold Coast reached the highest overall median at $950,000, up 17 per cent year-on-year. The Sunshine Coast followed at $870,000, representing annual growth of nine per cent.

RPM noted the affordability gap between houses and units remains significant, with detached homes commanding premiums of 67 per cent in Brisbane and 68 per cent on the Gold Coast relative to apartments.

The report suggests this price disparity is increasingly consolidating buyer demand within the apartment market, particularly among downsizers and owner-occupiers.

“Demand is real. Supply is moving. But they’re operating on different timelines and the gap between what’s being built and what buyers can afford is the defining tension in this market right now,” RPM Queensland and NSW Managing Directors Peter Neale and Clinton Trezise said in the report.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=150787 project_image_fid=366230]

While approvals and commencements are strengthening, RPM argues the delivery pipeline remains constrained by construction costs, labour shortages, and extended build timelines.

Apartment approvals across Queensland increased 86 per cent over the year to February 2026, reaching 12,682 approvals, the highest level recorded since 2016. Brisbane overtook the Gold Coast as the state’s most active apartment approval market, with nearly 5,000 apartments approved over the past 12 months.

Unit commencements also strengthened considerably, rising 48 per cent year-on-year to 5,453 commencements in the December 2025 quarter, the highest level since 2018.

However, RPM’s research found apartment delivery timeframes have expanded sharply compared to the previous cycle. Projects are now averaging around 30 months from approval to completion, compared to roughly 20 months a decade ago.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=143932 project_image_fid=367515]

The number of units under construction has climbed to approximately 31,530 dwellings, nearing the previous 2016 peak, though projects are remaining in the pipeline for considerably longer.

Construction costs continue to weigh heavily on feasibility. RPM found the average apartment construction cost in Greater Brisbane reached $630,000 per dwelling in 2025, exceeding both Sydney and Melbourne. Coastal Queensland markets, including the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, were even higher at an average of $817,418 per apartment due to the prevalence of larger premium product.

The report also points to increasing pressure from Olympic-related infrastructure spending ahead of Brisbane 2032, with labour competition expected to intensify over the next several years.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=150017 project_image_fid=370960]

ANZ Associate Director of Property Daniel Gradwell said the underlying demand drivers across South East Queensland remain strong, supported by interstate migration, downsizers, and population growth.

“The challenge is bringing enough supply to market to meet that demand, and nothing on the horizon makes that straightforward,” Gradwell said.

RPM’s analysis found the affordability challenge is becoming more pronounced in the new apartment market itself, with only three per cent of surveyed new apartments priced below $1 million.

Instead, the market is increasingly concentrated in higher price brackets, with the most common new apartment price band across SEQ sitting between $1.5 million and $1.75 million. Around half of all new apartment stock surveyed is priced below $2 million.

The report suggests developers are not necessarily avoiding lower price points by choice, but because current construction economics make delivering affordable apartments increasingly difficult at scale.

Rental conditions also remain tight across the region. Median rents for one-bedroom apartments rose 12 per cent in Brisbane over the past year to $580 per week, while Gold Coast one-bedroom rents increased nine per cent to $630.

Despite rising rents, RPM noted bond lodgements have generally trended downward over the past five years, indicating more apartments are being absorbed by owner-occupiers rather than retained as investor-held rental stock.

Looking ahead, RPM expects projects targeting the mid-market owner-occupier segment between $1.25 million and $2 million to remain the most viable part of the market, while premium projects in highly constrained coastal or riverfront locations continue to attract demand.

“Construction costs are rewriting the feasibility rulebook across Greater Brisbane, and with little relief in sight, only projects in the right price band, right location, and with presales secured early will make it through,” the report concludes.

Jonathan Chancellor

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