Onehunga Housing

DESIGN APPROACH The design involves a high-density zoned site close to a thriving town centre but includes many severe constraints, including flooding, wastewater piping, and the site's shape. The design approach was to accommodate three 5-storey apartment buildings around a central courtyard as the ground level communal open space with seating, BBQ area and soft and hard landscaping. Otherwise, the ground floor of the buildings generally avoids residential units to accommodate undercover car parking and preserves the site area outside the building footprints as much as possible for on-site landscaping to offer site amenities. The site plan deliberately avoids any visibility of the car parking area from the front street. Each apartment design includes enough living spaces with ample natural lighting and cross ventilation and avoids any direct overlooking of windows and principal living spaces between opposite buildings. Each apartment has a balcony as its outdoor space, directly connected to the internal living area and overlooks either the front street or internal communal open space to offer informal surveillance. The balconies also offer variety in building facade modulation by incorporating solid and void spaces.