Juno Apartments
By Stufkens+Chambers Architects
2020
Positioned adjacent to a park setting of a mature stand of trees and a medium density gabled urban vernacular, this site was to be occupied with apartment living that responded to the natural setting of Cranmer Square.
The resulting street profile was inspired by the surrounding historic and contemporary gable forms allowing us to sculpt a façade that played with massing and transparency whilst creating subtle folds and angles allowing shadow movement throughout the day. The offset gables to the street façade were used to create a sense of an extension skyward to reflect the scale of the trees opposite. While plywood soffits add a simple punch of natural timber colour to an overall restrained palette.
Large picture windows to the street capture and draw you towards the park setting of Cranmer Square which helps increase and enrich the sense of depth and spaciousness. Purposeful scale of glazing provided reflections to reference the adjacent treescape. The interface with the street is further enhanced through the balcony porosity yet cleverly maintaining privacy between adjacent units.
The major moves of the design can be understood as responses to the limited dimensions of the site, purposely subduing the massing of 14 units which are successfully concealed and hidden from the street and arranged in two blocks with separate north and west orientations. Car parking is secured under the rear block of units and accessed via a side lane. Secure automated pedestrian flow is also accessed adjacent the lane.
Challenges included the narrow site constraints and the client’s density requirements. The narrow main view shaft out to the park provided the street profile and the established western shared boundary picture framed openings to an adjacent apartment’s outdoor common area, providing access to an northern orientation for the rear block.
Awards: 2020 ADNZ Highly Commended, 2022 Tida New Zealand Home Highly Commended
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Juno Apartments
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Stufkens+Chambers Architects is a talented, progressive practice with award-winning registered principals who take great pride in consistently delivering quality architectural design that offers creative, innovative and functional spatial solutions to a wide range of clients, developers, organisations and government bodies.
We have experience and expertise in a wide range of projects and take great pride in consistently delivering creative architecture and interior design solutions to commercial, residential, retail, office and hospitality clients. Our approach is to work collaboratively and to challenge and inspire each other to find the best possible outcomes on each project.
The practice goes beyond the replication of style and convention and approaches each idea or project from a foundation of considered research, drawing inspiration from the contextual surroundings, the landscape and its textures and light. Referencing these they will interpret their relevance so your built space sits elegantly within the environment selected. Stufkens+Chambers continually strive for architectural clarity, logic, functionality and an element of delight in all their conceptual design work, ambitiously striving to meet or exceed your expectations from concept and design to specification and build.
As qualified architects, great emphasis is placed on the quality of the detailing, not just structurally and artistically but the continually referencing the experience inside and outside the space as the guide to a more 'wholistic' solution embraces everything from the architectural idea to the nature of the construction materials used to express it.
At Stufkens + Chambers, we are also a proud member of the New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGCB) a not-for profit, industry organisation dedicated to accelerating the development and adoption of market-based green building practices.
Underpinning all our work is a technical excellence and effective project management that provides direction, advice and guidance throughout the building process. Complimenting this, we only operate under best practice processes and risk management solutions that only enhance your experience.
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