facebook.com/AuckArchAssoc

Top Recent Posts on the AAA’s Facebook Page

1) Auckland’s Hidden Public Access ways

‘Hidden’ public access ways are littered all over the city like these shortcuts from Fort st to Shortland St. Many are a condition of a developments resource consent and some even include lifts and elevators for anyone to use.  Facebook Link >

2) Malcolm Walker at his best

Facebook Link >

3) Auckland’s Toyo Ito

In light of Toyo Ito’s Pritzker Prize we thought we would highlight Auckland’s very own slice of Tokyo on the Strand, Parnell……  Facebook Link >

4) The Auckland Triennial ‘Lab’

A preview of the design-based Laboratory in the upcoming Auckland Triennial which is set to address some of the major issues confronting our city with the participation of design specialists, students, artists and the general public.  Facebook Link >

5) The University of Auckland’s Newmarket Campus

The 5.2ha former Lion Breweries site is soon to be the home of the University of Auckland’s Newmarket Campus. The framework plan by Jasmax and Architectus outlines a mixed use campus with student accommodation, business development and teaching and research facilities.  Facebook Link >

Designed by Daniel Marshall and exquisite in every way, it’s also a generous and serene family home. Set out over various levels and oriented towards the northern sun, you can entertain from the moody formal living area, relax in the lower family room with its ash blond timber floors or snuggle up in the media room. Prepare a meal from the sleek kitchen with its clever hidden scullery while you look out over the large private garden and pool of this 938sqm property.

http://bayleys.co.nz/4107010

http://marshall-architect.co.nz/project-portfolio/9-elmstone/

Built in late 1940s by Tibor Donnor, this house is a great example of Modernism in New Zealand. It has been a feature of the Auckland Heritage Festival, and of an AAA house tour around Titirangi. It looks to be an intimate show in which the house is a significant part of the comedy.

Tickets via Ticketek here
From the promotor:

“ In what is a unique experience, kick back at this extraordinary 1947 house as Rosso artfully weaves fantastical tales about suburban youth, new fatherhood and showbiz excess including a road trip with Vanilla Ice. Direct from sell out shows in Sydney and Melbourne.”

Image source, Lost Property: http://www.lostproperty.org.nz/architects/t-donner/

The Auckland plan may improve inner city amenity, but without lifting the standard of accommodation buildings, it will attract people to visit rather than live. Even if you treat an apartment as an extended bedroom, and the city as the kitchen, dining and living room, you don’t want to be left with a dingy, depressing bedroom that visitors will only brave while holding their breath.

Bad examples of apartments are a dime a dozen around Auckland. Poorly planned units make life a quiet struggle, and rather than contributing to street life, a vacuum is stretched across where the buildings hit the ground.

There are good examples around Auckland, to start with, Zone 23 by Avery Architects, at 23 Edwin Street, Mt Eden.
Developer –   Location Commercial
Contractor –  Macrennie Construction

Zone 23 is a mixed use development with offices on the ground and first floor, and three bedroom maisonette-style apartments above. Interior spaces are generous with double height volumes and large glazed areas protected by aluminum louvres. The interior and exterior living spaces are appropriately proportioned, and look to be finished to a high quality, life shouldn’t be a struggle here.

At street level, the private vehicle seems to dominate. While the apartments have a generous terrace, and there is a small courtyard behind the buildings, pedestrian space is a little scant around the edge of the building. It also looks as if a misplaced foot on the accelerator could send you through an office window too. All up, Zone 23 is an attractive option for inner city living, but for who?

Based on the capital values on the Auckland Council GIS, the apartments range from $510k to $990k. At the lower end of the range, this is seven times the median household income for Auckland – affordable is a factor of three to four. This puts the Zone 23 apartments as affordable to the upper quartile, households earning $130k to $170k per year.

To see what is an “affordable” apartment is for Aucklands median income earning households, just look over the road from zone 23. A sad collection of plaster and pokey windows which comes in at approx $220k per unit. We must be able to do better than this!

(Above, over the road from Zone 23) I would certainly be holding my breath in these ones.

Do you have a favorite apartment building? Are apartments affordable in comparison to stand alone housing?

Published by Alastair Mckenzie | Shared Thoughts are the views as written by the Author, not of the AAA.

Images sourced from Avery Architects website, and Google street view.

As Auckland intensifies, it needs to be done upon a backbone of public transport and walkable urban “villages”, concepts mentioned in Kents talk, and discussed in the Auckland plan.

There is a lot of media about the death of the kiwi quarter acre dream by way of rampant housing prices. Demographia described Aucklands housing as “severely unaffordable” where the median house price is 6.7 time the average wage. Affordable is a factor of 3.

Some suggested solutions push more money to compete for the same supply, such as government aid for first home buyers and low interest loans, and others look to lift supply such as the subdivision at Hobsonville point.

General trends indicate a growing market for intensification, although there is a negative stigma to it as recognised in the Auckland Plan:

“ At present there is a limited but growing market for intensified housing. The reasons for this include the traditional New Zealand preference for detached homes, expectations of the size of housing that far exceed incomes, and examples of poorly designed apartments, especially in the CBD” Auckland Plan, Chapter 11, part 626.

As such we need to have a public discussion about how life necessary amenities can be provided for in intensified environments, showcasing great examples to inspire people to change their expectations. Perhaps you don’t need a  4 bedroom house with walk in wardrobe, ensuites, study and a double garage when you can walk to work, share your study as a guest bedroom and share a bathroom with family members. 

Quick facts:

• Auckland’s housing is severely unaffordable 
• Average house prices in Auckland are at $615,000, breaking the 2007 peak.
• 35% Growth in average home floor area from 1991 to 2011, 144 m² to 220 m².
• Labour plans to build 100,000 houses at an average of $300,000 each – a $30 billion dollar project 
• 400,000 new houses needed by 2040, approx 13,000 per year
• 3,800 consents issued in 2011

Published by Alastair Mckenzie | Shared Thoughts are the views as written by the Author, not of the AAA.

Aucklander’s are hungry for a pedestrian lifestyle, but carefully lobbied land use patterns have sent Auckland down a direction counter to this. A pedestrian lifestyle is not walking a dog around suburban streets, its a lifestyle in which your legs play a primary role in transport.

The Skybridge will enable your legs to deliver you across the harbour, with trips likely to be tolled to foot the $31 million dollar bill.

The suggested $2 toll for hop card users opens up the privaledge of a healthy pedestrian lifestyle to those within a comfortable catchment area of the bridge.  It may bring thousands of houses within the catchment area to a walkable or cycle-able distance to the city centre, but how many of those households have keen cyclists who work in that same radius.

The encapsulating skin will provide shelter from the wind and rain, and no doubt keep people from taking a dive off it, while glass sections should permit a continuous panorama of views along the journey.

It would be very interesting to see how stop off areas have been treated. From the external render it seems there are 3 of these areas per side, which look generous in size.

Should funding go well, it would be great to be able to cycle to work and stop off in a bay on the Skypath to take in the view.

Published by Alastair Mckenzie | Shared Thoughts are the views as written by the Author, not of the AAA.

The clock tower building is a beautiful specimen of the Art Nouveau movement. Sitting on the edge of Albert park it elegantly fills the backdrop for the pomp and parade of university graduates, picnics and festivals.

During my university days it had a near fantastical charm, aspiring spires, fluid precast concrete, pointed arches and heavy stone. Fantastical, no. Real.

Errol Harhoff and Julia Gatley introduce the story of the building in the video below.

Published by Alastair Mckenzie | Shared Thoughts are the views as written by the Author, not of the AAA.

The Brake House has been recognised by DOCOMOMO New Zealand as being among the top 20 modern buildings, sites and neighbourhoods. The house is well documented as one of New Zealand’s most important modern buildings, and is an important example of the work of leading architect Ron Sang. Allan Wild, former Head of the School of Architecture at the University of Auckland, wrote an entry in the recent publication ‘Long Live the Modern’ in which he discussed the building and its architect:

The site had been found for him by Wellington photographer Spencer Digby, who had apprenticed him. Sculptor Guy Ngan introduced Brake to Auckland architect Ron Sang, who proceeded to design the house by correspondence with Brake over six months, with eighteen revisions. The result was a brilliant combination of spaces and places of exquisite quality and beauty, designed for the Waitakere bush, but including a distant outlook to the city. The house is in two distinct parts, sleeping and entertaining, linked by a glass bridge. Most of it is only one room wide. Protruding from the main linear form are a deck, supported on a single post, and a glass-walled tatami room, reflecting Brake’s love of Asia.

Notes above from Council Heritage Assessment of the Brake House.

Open Home … fingers are crossed ! …

Sang Architects and Company Ltd

Brake House on Trade Me

More detail on the 2012 awards and the winners.