When the Sandringham Plunket and Playgroup facility burned down as a result of arson one Guy Fawkes night, the community got together to write a brief for a redesign that would be innovative, flexible, contemporary, cost-effective and energy efficient. Sandringham Plunket borders a public park and residential housing.
Flexibility of use and adaptation of facilities to more that one function is more than a pragmatic ideal; it can also be approached as an extension of sustainability in terms of resourcefulness and longevity.
An innovative low budget building designed as a flexible use facility that caters for the needs of Plunket nurses and associated children's playgroups from the surrounding community.
The project had to meet the brief of 3 stakeholders; Auckland City Council as the owner, Plunket as the majority user, and Community playgroups as the secondary user.
The building features a naturally lit "Outdoor Room" to encourage year-round all weather play, an easy clean up surface with decking flowing from the interior to the exterior, and large opening clear acrylic sheet sectional folding door.
A modern interior décor is reflected through colour linking of the Plunket logo to featured door colours, complimentary carpet tiles and vinyl.
The design responds to Council's CPTED (Crime prevention through environmental design) policy and is applied through planting around the Southern/Eastern walls of the façade and fence, and the use of a "random" overbatten fixed to the ply façade, in order to create "disturbed" surfaces with the objective of deterring tagging.
ESD principles feature in passive solar heating through retention of the winter sun heating the floor mass, passive cross-ventilation for summer cooling, "super-insulated" southern wall with no penetrations and external vertical slat screening of western windows to minimise heat from afternoon summer sun.
Photography by © Emily Andrews
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Strachan Group Architects is a multiple award-winning Auckland practice. Grounded in a specific and detailed first-hand knowledge of construction the team brings a highly developed sense of craft to the task of creating sustainable buildings with precision and elegance.
The keen sense of attention that the practice brings to the interpretation of a client’s brief is equalled by a rich and complex understanding of how to respond to the subtleties of site, the impacts of the natural environment, and the many contexts within which a building must operate. To these qualities SGA adds a precise understanding of the requirements of construction, with an advanced level of experience of prefabrication and the use of digitally controlled machinery in the fabrication of building elements under tightly controlled conditions.
SGA takes pride in it's ability to communicate ideas about building as they develop in conversation with clients, consultants and contractors. This skill has been honed in the extensive involvement the practice has had in education, where it has delivered a number of design/build projects with architecture students that have been recognised by the New Zealand Institute of Architects by a series of Awards.
Recognised by their peers as an innovative and exciting practice, SGA consists of a group of highly skilled people with a diverse range of complimentary skills. This flexible team is highly attuned to new developments in the building industry, appreciated by their many clients and capable of undertaking work at any scale.
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