Hobsonville Point’s success is a result of design focus at each scale: the masterplan establishes the main ideas and principles and also the main structuring elements of Hobsonville Point Road, the perimeter green network and the two suburb-scale highlights of The Landing and Te Onekiritea Point.
At the medium scale, Hobsonville Point is divided into five main precincts: Buckley, Sunderland, Catalina, The Village and The Landing. Each has received specific design attention under evolving mechanisms. Buckley and Sunderland were designed under the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) provisions of Auckland’s District Plan. Catalina, on the other hand, was designed under the overlay provisions of the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP). It is likely that the development controls for The Landing will be put in place by way of a Plan Change, given the unique qualities of that precinct.
Despite the different mechanisms, each precinct is designed separately at this medium scale. Each is made up of streets
and blocks; there are form-based controls for housing and neighbourhood highlights such as community buildings and local parts of the reserve network. Treating each precinct separately helps build a medium-scale organic character into Hobsonville Point.
The development controls devised for each precinct are then applied at the fine scale through a design review of individual lots and houses. The development strategy sees the tender of ‘super-blocks’ to preferred building partners, who submit their home designs to the Design Review Panel. This approach provides the necessary economies of scale while ensuring sufficient architectural variety for each precinct.
The development controls contain both a letter and a spirit. In the first precinct, Auckland Council administered the ‘standards’, and the design panel, under the auspices of HLC and AVJennings (the ‘masterbuilder’), administered the design guidelines. However, such a split meant that the letter and the spirit were not dealt with together. The current approach uses a single panel to administer both the standards and the guidelines, so that the letter and spirit can be considered together. The panel comprises the masterplanner, an architect, a representative of HLC and an urban designer from Auckland Council. This approach promotes diversity through the design interpretations of different architects.
The result is deliberately less perfect, but it reflects better the characteristics of successful suburbs, and feels more organic, more authentic and more human. Rather than architectural style, the guidelines specify the qualities of directness: an honesty and authenticity expressed in contemporary building styles. Favoured qualities also include a direct and relaxed relationship between buildings and open spaces; the appearance of lightness rather than massiveness in building form and materials; a relaxed, open-plan living style; individuality, complexity and richness in each building, street and neighbourhood; links to the coastal edge by way of streets and parks; an overall green impression, particularly a coherent green character in streets; and responsiveness to, and expression of, context and topography.
These qualities are intended to pervade Hobsonville Point and relate specifically to its context as a harbour-side suburb. But they are written in such a way as to promote individual interpretation by different architects rather than a predetermined style guide.