Boutique hotel in 'grungy' Braddon redevelopment

Construction will begin next year on Palko, a “grungy” new building that will stretch over a number of blocks at the north end of the street, and will include a boutique 50-room hotel, about 46 apartments, and space for more than 20 retail and food outlets tucked into a series of laneways and courtyards. The building will also have three levels of underground parking, catering for about 300 cars.

The existing leases in premises from the Bamboo Forest Café through to Thrifty will expire by October next year, and demolition will begin soon after.

Across the road, construction is already underway on another of their projects, Alluvion, next to the new Mode3 building. The original design for the building has been given a facelift, to give it a more industrial façade.

Both projects are being coordinated by B & T Constructions, led by creative designer Nik Bulum and his father, builder Ivan Bulum.

The duo collaborated on the two new developments at the north end of Lonsdale Street, Nik bringing a creative flair and passion and Ivan assessing practical feasibility and compliance, to create a project that Nik believes retains some of the area’s industrial heritage while still complying with planning laws.

“These two buildings will completely change the street, and hopefully set a standard for the rest of the street,” he said.

But Nik said it was a challenge to design the buildings within government planning guidelines, and warned strict rules forced builders to make “everything look the same” in Canberra.

“They’re suffocating the design by having all these setbacks and rules. It kind of kills any brief when you’re trying to do something creative,” he said.

“I wanted to something a little bit crazier. I’m happy with the building [Palko], I love it. But I just wish that creativity, that freedom was there for the architects to push the boundaries a little bit and do something a little bit more ‘wow’.”

While he and his father butted heads over ideas, Nik said their healthy relationship at opposite ends of the construction industry – design versus build – meant they often met in the middle to achieve finished products that were more innovative.

But Nik said planning regulations didn’t include design considerations, which meant architects and designers were often ‘‘suffocated’’ by strict rules and codes with no recourse for creativity.

“It kills the idea. That’s why we get these simple kind of buildings. It would be nice if we had part of the planning process, with approving, that someone looks at design and materials,” he said.

“Canberra’s future will go for hundreds of years to come, but will these buildings last?”

Nik said working with his father, Ivan, who has been in construction for more than 45 years, has given him an appreciation for feasible design and the practicalities of the industry, and said the government needed to employ a more collaborative approach with architects, designers, and builders.

“You have to have both. You have to have the design and the innovative side, and have that practical side too to make it work. And then you get a beautiful balance, whereas I feel like now it doesn’t have that balance,” he said.

Ivan said he’d given his son charge of the Lonsdale Street projects because his son was so passionate about the precinct, and wanted to try something different, but said increasing government costs and regulation made it difficult.

“It’s something different. We need something different in Canberra…the only problems we’ve got now is the government changing the betterment tax,” he said.

“The betterment tax is killing Braddon and all of Canberra…That’s why a lot of these buildings are not doing anything, because people can’t afford it.”