Afton House

Client South Australian Housing Trust and Department for Families and Communities Location South Terrace Adelaide SA Value $10.5M Completion 2008

Social responsibility and compassion and the creation of embracing environments for those marginalised is important to us at Greenway. This very successful and highly regarded project created a new benchmark for affordable housing for those less privileged within our community.

The original Afton House is a locally heritage listed set of residential terraces fronting South Terrace that had been allowed to run down over time. The project fully restored Afton Terraces linked to two new four storey wings of new accommodation on the land behind. Across 96 rooms in a variety of configurations providing short, medium- and longer-term accommodation, the self-contained apartments cater for longer term residents, with shared common areas and amenities. The original Terraces are repurposed into administrative and support facilities, and a number of additional long stay apartments.

During the design development stages, in association with our consultant team, we thoroughly explored a range of construction alternatives prior to finalising the design. A concrete framed structure was selected as it provided a greater range of options for refurbishing/ recycling the building in the future. A number of ESD initiatives were also incorporated in the design including solar hot water, stormwater collection re-use and construction waste minimisation.

Considerable effort was put into selection of materials and finishes to create a very durable facility with a non-institutional homely quality. This extended through to the selections of fittings furniture and equipment (FFE) delivered as an adjunct to the consultancy and resulted in a consistent, coherent and attractive interior.

Afton House was undertaken for The South Australian Housing Trust and has been the recipient of a number of varied awards including from the Civic Trust, the Urban Development Institute of Australia and the Australian Housing Institute Award for Excellence.