Compact 9 Story Apartments

The objective for this building was to make a skyscraper apartment building with as large a living space as possible, high up in the air, with commanding views, which could be built on virtually any lot. So a lot size of 20 wide by 30 deep was chosen. And it was designed from the ground up with this specific objective in mind and the result has very good playability. I couldn't find any buildings like it on the net with large playable areas high up, although there are now a few tall completely faux buildings with no inside areas and designed to be scenery. Also, there is the 15 floor "Frikets Sims Building" by patul on this website with its small penthouse, (see the following link which includes a link to a detailed tutorial on how to make 9 to 15 floors above ground),


http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=361248

My Compact 9 Story Apartments looks best when placed as a pair, as for example at 174 and 178 Savannah Lane, Twinbrook (two 20x30 lots next to each other).



It was possible to fit some modest landscaping even on this 20x30 lot even when restricted to 2 tiles wide on the sides and rear, and 4 tiles wide on the front. The architecture was given a more unique look by adding a golden brown facade around the garage door which really helped. I replaced the glass fences on the balconies with a more prominent fence so as to show up better (and to avoid the annoying aqua repainting effect when seen from a distance). I added a third balcony for better symmetry. There are thousands of medium density apartment buildings here in Sydney and this would fit right in. Here is a panorama shot which shows the rooftop grill area. Add some rugs and a statue and have a party.



Being a conventional tall building I wanted an internal 8 car parking lot (tested with 4 cars) and the natural place for that was the first floor, along with an indoor swimming pool. Due to the phantom nature of the building (using the CFE cheat) the 2nd through 5th floors only exist as a shell, but the illusion is quite striking. As a result, however, it was not possible to add internal walls on the first floor. The workable solution I found was to build white brick fence between the car park and the pool area and public toilet as shown in the screen shots (and the phantom fully working 1st to 6th floor bridging stairs are also seen).

Skipping the 2nd through 5th fake floors, which you will have to imagine exist (it's a fantasy game after all), one arrives at the modest 6th and 7th floor 2 bedroom apartments which are completely unfurnished to avoid sims routing issues (see accompanying screen shots). In principle you could furnish these yourself and replace the entry doors to the 3 real apartments in the building with a "Multi Owners Door" (do a search here in downloads) in order to keep sims families separate. I will leave that to you as I have not experimented with those doors yet as they are of a higher patch level than I am currently using.

The 8th floor is the four bedroom part of the fully furnished two floor penthouse, with bathroom and separate family room area with a chess set. A security door separates the stairwell so that only the penthouse can access the roof top barbecue area and the telescope. It is very convenient by the way to have all the sims sleeping on the same floor. See the screen shots for a pic of the 8th floor.

Lastly, the 9th floor is the main living/working area with a luxury open plan kitchen, dining area, living room/study, laundry and a 2nd bathroom. To break up the slightly boring open floor plan I have added decorative columns with four in-wall 15 inch speakers to complete the 7.1 sound system as shown in these shots!





Included are two computers, wall mounted HD TV with hi-fi stereo right below it, guitar, and two painting stands. Included on the first floor are 3.5 bicycles with stands and a Vorn pickup truck. Decorated by 9 sims paintings before I evicted the dissapointed sims when I sold the building at the 50k+ depreciated price shown below.

The building was also tested on the 20x30 lot at 451 Riverview Rd in the Riverview world, which is right near the river and just a short bicycle ride from the town centre.

174 or 178 Savannah Lane, Twinbrook; or 451 Riverview Rd, Riverview (these bare lots cost 1,200).
Buy mode cost: 201,692 simoleans furnished.
Buy mode cost: 149,877 simoleans unfurnished.

It costs 1,500 simoleans more at the beach property at 9 Sun Song Ave, Sunset Valley (bare lot costs 2,700), which was a good spot for views of the ocean.

Built with the updates that load with the 2010 S3/WA/HEL/AMB discs, namely 1.12.70/2.0.86/3.0.38/4.0.87 so it should work for people still delaying updating for various reasons. No Custom Content was used.

Lot Size: 2x3
Lot Price: 201,692

Additional Credits:
Thanks to patul for his tutorial on phantom tall buildings.
Thanks to the makers of gimp.