Moving along well, work hard lads

Visited on Saturday 1 November and lots of banging and hammering going on. Here are a few photos from different angles.

First photo shows the western side of the building and good progress on the stairs that will link the upper level (on Jones Street) with the lower level of HM, and on down to the light rail station. A lot of the excavation work has been done and the staircase is in, next to the building.

To give a better relationship with the finished product, take a look at the artist's impression at the top of my blog to see how it steps down over several levels. Clever design, really. A lot more excavation work is still required because there will be a lift from the top level, stopping at the intermediate level, then down to the light rail platform, giving excellent wheelchair access.

Moving the camera to the left, capturing more of the 10-storey structure, you can see one of the atrium areas between the two sections of the building. It will be a large open gap. I like this feature as the middle of the building should feel bright and breezy, not dark as in some apartments. You can also see clearly where the stairs will be built down to the light rail platform.

Although the building is about six months from completion, you can see below that one of the apartments is quite advanced. This is on the first floor (although it looks like the ground floor, there is an apartment underneath it. The land slopes upwards from west to east). This is a two bedroom apartment and the left-hand opening is one bedroom, the next room along (with the panelling either side of a window) is the second bedroom, and the third room along is the balcony (generous size!) coming off the living area. You can see these apartments receive good dappled light from the sun in the morning (photo taken at about 9am), filtered by large trees which will remain after construction is completed.

And for those of you on the northern and western sides of the building, he's a shot for you. It's a surprisingly imposing structure considering it is 'only' 10 storeys, perhaps because it is at the top of the escarpment and you have to look up to it rather than alongside it.