View Line Photography for Silk by Graya

June 3, 2026 - 4 minutes read

Silk sits on one of the last genuine riverfront development opportunities in Brisbane’s inner west. The site at 16-18 Sandford Street, St Lucia, occupies a prominent bend in the Brisbane River, with a northerly aspect looking across Orleigh Park toward the CBD skyline. Graya acquired it for $17 million. The $150 million tower will deliver 22 large-format residences across 15 levels, each either half- or full-floor.

The architecture takes the river as its reference point. Planning documents describe the building as “a form sculpted by flow, shaped by shifting water,” with curved facades and sandstone materiality reinterpreted through refined and split-face textures. The river does not just frame the outlook. It shapes the building itself.

Graya engaged Visual Spaces to capture drone view line photography across 20 levels, one flight per level, to document what buyers will see from each residence before construction begins.

What the Views Need to Show

Silk’s position on a river bend means the outlook is dynamic. It shifts as the building rises. Lower levels carry the park and river edge in close proximity. Upper levels open out to the CBD skyline and the river sweeping west. The penthouse double-level sits above the noise, with a panorama that encompasses both directions of the river and the full city horizon.

Without floor-by-floor evidence, a buyer evaluating a half-floor residence mid-building is working from assumptions. With view line photography, they are working from facts.

How the Capture Was Done

Visual Spaces flew the DJI Matrice 3E Enterprise with RTK positioning at each floor height, georeferenced using the DJI D-RTK 3 Mobile Station. Each waypoint is tied to a coordinate, so the drone returns to the same position with the same orientation regardless of conditions on the day. Twenty levels. Twenty individual captures. Each one placed at the correct height for that residence and oriented to represent the primary aspect.

The RTK accuracy matters here because the view differential between floors on a riverfront site is meaningful. A half-level error changes what appears above the treeline. Accuracy is not a specification detail. It is the point.

Delivered via ViewNav

All 20 view captures are delivered inside ViewNav, Visual Spaces’ interactive view intelligence platform. Buyers and project marketing teams can navigate every level from a single link, compare floor-to-floor differences, and review the full 360-degree panorama from each position.

For a project like Silk, where apartment pricing scales significantly with height and outlook, being able to show the precise view from Level 8 versus Level 14 gives sales conversations a foundation that renders and descriptions alone cannot provide.

Project link: viewnav.com.au/view/silk

About Graya

Graya is a design, development and construction firm operating across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Byron Bay. On the Brisbane riverfront, their track record includes 17 Julius Street, which set new benchmarks for riverfront apartment sales in the city. Silk continues that trajectory on a tightly held stretch of the St Lucia foreshore, with construction expected to commence late 2026 and completion targeted for 2028.