Description:

It’s a simple building, three storeys tall, its warm red brick façade a homage to the old-school brick homes of post-war Meadowbank. It has a traditional gabled roof, soaring, almost churchlike: inside soft, blue, watery hues echo throughout the design, reminiscent of the tranquil waters of the Ōrākei Basin and Auckland’s early evening skies.

Just 400m from Meadowbank Station – and just seven minutes’ by train into the CBD – this project demonstrates the possibilities of intelligent intensification.

Fourteen one and two-bedroom homes and a communal pool sit on a 632 sq/m site where an ex-state house had stood. More typically, a site of this size in Meadowbank would see two or three townhouses plonked down, each costing about $2m. Instead this project has delivered 14 units priced between $635,000 and $935,000 – four times the housing supply at perhaps 35% of median house value in the area.

These numbers provide several options for its residents that are not always seen in urban regeneration projects. It avoids the socio-economic stratification that is becoming ever-more evident in the city. It helps older people downsize and stay in the area. It helps younger people afford to live here. And it also brings density, which allows the city’s mass transit and cycle networks to improve.

Clad in low maintenance brick the façade is close to zero maintenance. The basement houses bicycle storage and e-charging facilities for residents. The apartments cost little to run – energy-efficient heatpumps, LED lighting, and low water use appliances, the power and water bills are kept to a minimum.

Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson opened the building in March 2023. Not only is this intensification done incredibly well,” she said, “but it’s right next to arguably the best walkway/cycleway in Auckland” (referring, here, to the stunning Te Ara Ki Uta Ki Tai – the Path of Land and Sea – which might very well be the most mediative, zen-like meander in the city).

“This building is built by the train station,” she continued, “beside this fantastic walkway/cycleway which means the people who live here can walk or cycle all the way – off-road – into the city…

“It’s simply design done well.

“This is the future. Do more of it, please.”