bva wrote:the statement "avoiding unecessary costs" is a poor choice of words. Good design does cost money but first this must be accepted as important. ACC officers should challenge the viability of this scheme as part of the design assessment.
I disagree. The shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. In business, no one can afford to go the long way. Its expensive, unprofessional and non-competitive. Regardless of my opinion, your opinion, or the whole worlds opinion, these buildings only exist because someone, somewhere has made (or attempted to make) a profit. Unless a building was put up by a government, church or charity, all the rest have made someone money. The trick to development is to deliver the best possible outcome, for the best possible price. The first step is to achieve efficiency in the design. Now, a building like this, that already has everything stacked up against it, needs to achieve that efficiency from the very beginning. The site is landlocked, the floor-to-wall ratio exceeds pretty much every building in its class, there are no economies of scale to take advantage of in terms of prelims (ie cranes, man and materials hoists, etc) - one needs to take all these fixed costs into consideration and then turn his/her attention to the rest of the details during the design development phase.
The design team in this instance, has done a fantastic job of maintaining the architectural integrity of the building, while fighting the rest of the issues that the group is presented with - some I mentioned above. Its not the council's job to challenge the viability of any scheme as part of its assessment. There is no way, at the early stages of a project, especially at the Town Planning stage, that you can forecast the cost or viability of a project. At that stage, no one knows what the thing is going to be made of, and no, they can't estimate it within a certain percentile. The first time you even get an idea within 10-15% is after the design development phase, which in this case, has cost just under $1,000,000. No developer in his/her right mind would spend that sort of money on any project without the guarantee of a Town Planning permit. Sounds a bit like chicken and egg doesn't it?
The system is not perfect. I agree with that. And no-one is arguing that good design doesn't cost money. But there is a difference between stupid design and efficient design. Both can ultimately achieve a "good design". A developer/builder should and will always strive for an efficient design because, in the long run, you can achieve the same result with less time and money. As I said in my previous post, why spend an additional $2,000,000 scaffolding the building when a material like Swiss Pearl will give you a good, weather proof finish that looks exactly the same - and can be delivered in half the time? That is efficient design. Its the design that the entire world will come to judge upon completion of the project, and its the design that the architects and other consultants will have to stand by.
I hope this clarifies the point.
