The site is located in a mixed residential and commercial area sitting just south of Te Whanganui-a-Tara’s central city area and nestled between the Basin Reserve and Pukeahu National War Memorial Park.

We maximised the site’s potential up to the street boundaries with a three-storey apartment building and with careful planning we were able to achieve the potential for 19 dwellings – a mix of studio, one, and two bedroom units. 14 of these units have the ability to be tenanted as individual accommodation or joined with the adjacent unit through a dual-key typology if desired.

The building’s form and materiality addresses the eclectic and mixed use of the local environs by providing differing but complimentary facades to each of the street facades. A residential approach to the building fabric, comprising of balconies and courtyards faces west addressing and taking proportional lead from the original villas and multi-residential dwellings along Tasman Street. A potentially relentless wall punctured by champagne-coloured shrouds activate this street elevation and additionally assist with privacy.

External claddings were selected for longevity and ease of maintenance, as well as their ability to assimilate the building into its eclectic surroundings. South and West (street-facing) facades were clad in a black brick, picking up materiality of the heritage brick wall to the edge of Pukeahu National War Memorial Park across the street and the historical Mount Cook Police Barracks down Tasman Street. Glass was used to provide relief from these solid forms, either as deep picture windows or curtainwall glazing to provide vertical separation between building masses.

Inter-storey structure was provided by timber flooring cassettes. Steel strong-ties buried within walls were used to sandwich this structure together, with their rods anchored into foundations and terminating at the roof diaphragm, giving the building the ability to ‘bring itself back’ to equilibrium after a seismic event.