The building which is to be studied is an apartment building on a one acre site in Wellington's Oriental Bay. It was a design and build venture of Wilkins and Davies Development Co. Ltd. Registered Architects were employed for the design and the author's firm as consulting engineers with normal professional responsibilities for design and supervision of the structure and of the site works. In order to achieve the best financial return on the venture the maximum possible number of flats had to be fitted on to the site. With the town planning requirements for separation distance and the need for adequate car parking, this meant
 a tall building with 15 floors of flats (4 and 5 flats per floor) over
 a ground floor of parking.