Envy Apartment

Sponsored Content rise residential developments in recent years." /> Brisbane has seen a proliferation of high- rise residential developments in recent years. At one time Brisbane wore a reputation as the last, true east coast bastion of the quarter-acre block – a time, not so long ago, when many developers focused on delivering the Australian dream as a three- or four-bedroom home with a landscaped garden front and back.  How those times have changed.   Interstate migration, the need to mitigate the transport and infrastructure pressures of vast urban sprawl , and a more visionary approach to inner-city planning have all triggered the growth of Brisbane upward rather than outward. Investment in cultural precincts like South Bank have increased the appeal of inner-city living. Photo: Bradley Kanaris There is little doubt that, for most people familiar with the city, the biggest change in the past decade has been to the skyline with a proliferation of high- rise residenti...

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...