The flats were designed by Jack Hobbs McConnell and were perhaps the earliest and most integrated residential example of this style erected in South Australia. It is interesting to compare this with the building now known as 'Felicitas Flats' in Wellington Square. The latter illustrates the extent to which the South Australian building industry could adopt aspects of the style termed the 'Modern Movement'. For the Felicitas Flats the designer compromised the form of the roof by using the traditional hipped tile-clad roof, while Deep Acres is a forthright illustration of contemporary architectural thought. 'Modernism' is expressed in 'Deep Acres' by the relative austerity of external planar surfaces, the flat roof, metal windows, asymmetrical planning and integration of external and internal spaces. The Modern Movement was surrounded with self-justifying dogma which was later debased and is now largely discredited as a design philosophy but its importance to twentieth century architecture is undeniable.
McConnell came from Victoria to Adelaide in 1937 to work for architect Philip Claridge to assist in the design of the Bank of New South Wales premises on the south-east corner of King William Street and North Terrace. Deep Acres was McConnell's second South Australian designand one independent of partnership with Claridge. Shortly after, he designed his own home at Springfield in a similar fashion and it was featured in South Australian Homes and Gardens in 1946. From McConnell's partnership with Colin Hassell came designs in the 1960s for the Festival Theatre and the north and south precincts of Flinders University at Bedford Park, the State's second university.