His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales visited a building project which is taking a refreshing new look at the way we build new homes in Australia.
The Prince's Terraces Adelaide, located in the city’s suburb of Bowden, is the result of a unique collaboration between The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community and leading residential developer Defence Housing Australia (DHA). The concept behind the project was to bring the lessons learnt from the successful Prince’s Foundation residential projects in the UK to the Australian market.
The Prince created the Foundation as one of his many charities as a forum within which the design and build of homes, workplaces and communities can be raised to levels of excellence in terms of sustainability and local environmental factors and economies.
‘Sustainably planned, built and maintained communities improve the quality of the life for those living among them,’ said Victoria Chester, Executive Director, Prince’s Foundation for Building Community. ‘We are delighted to see this development bringing to life many of the principles that the Foundation believes in. These elements help us both live better at a local level and deal with the broader global challenges of urbanisation and climate change, while preserving our traditional influence and heritage.’
The Prince’s Foundation provided the design and design principles for the Prince’s Terraces and worked with local architects to develop layout and design that respects the Adelaide climate and lifestyle. DHA provided a valuable lynchpin role in the process, as well as the Australian perspective and insight into what Adelaide wanted. DHA will retain some of the dwellings to house Defence members and their families.
‘DHA and the Prince’s Foundation share many of the values and principles around sustainability, design, structure and use of materials in residential building with best use of space and contemporary timeless design,’ DHA’s Chairman the Hon. Sandy Macdonald said.
‘We have a shared ideology, but more than that we both want to go beyond the here and now to create homes that are comfortable for a range of families to live in, are resilient to climate conditions and will last into the future.’
The Prince has been kept informed of the progress of this project.
The terraces aim to take the best of traditional, Australian design and combine it with all the comforts of contemporary living. They build on the history of terraced homes but bring them into the future with environmentally friendly and sustainable design elements.