Urban intensity.
Dominion & Valley
Road Apartments.
This project by Panuku Development Auckland demonstrates how greater housing intensity – on a site with good links to public transport, restaurants and places of employment – can provide a number of community benefits.
This project, located on a key Auckland transport artery, integrates landscape architecture, urban design and architecture. The design (now lodged for resource consent following consultation with the Local Board and the Council’s Urban Design Panel) will see 102 dwellings and eight retail or commercial premises occupy a large, 5,200m2 site.
The development site is currently occupied by small, single-storey warehouses and shops. The architects, seeing inherent advantages in the L-shaped that surrounds but does not include the corner site at the intersection of Dominion and Valley Roads, designed a sequence of four buildings formed around a series of courtyards, internal laneways, sun courts and shared areas – ‘bump spaces’ to provide residents with places to chat as they move throughout the complex towards the neighbouring streets.
This part of Mt Eden is perfectly positioned for a greater number of dwellings; it’s just four kilometres from Auckland’s CBD and close to swift and frequent public transport services to the city. It is also well catered for by supermarkets and numerous food and drink options, services and stores – all of which stand to benefit from an increased population. The new buildings are designed to gently transition between the commercial strip of Dominion Road and the leafy residential suburb behind.
The buildings vary in height from three to five stories, and are orientated north to south to allow single-aspect apartments to benefit from either morning or afternoon sun. Ground-floor units are spread across two stories, while some dual-aspect three-beds apartments face both Dominion Road and the internal courtyard. Without being overtly referential, the architecture expands on the cues provided by an extensive street-character assessment of the neighbourhood. Dominion Road’s history of development is closely linked to the suburban tramline network – and that history provided the architects with a framework for a character-driven response that balances respect for the past with a view to the future.
The new buildings are layered: the formal arrangement balanced by more informal additions and there are varied and multifaceted street-facing edges. Each edge responds to the design cues provided by surrounding streets, but in all instances the overarching theme of connection and activation and the modulated scale brings depth and dynamism to this important part of the city.
Earl Rutherford, Daniel Yang, Rachel Berry, Paggy Shen, Adelle Hammond, John Broadbent, Emma Davis
Collaborators
Beca
Tattico
TDG
Tonkin + Taylor
Plan.Heritage
Clough & Associates
Client
Panuku Development Auckland