Interior Spaces: Committed to quality
The project’s raised building platforms ensure privacy from footpath traffic.
The kitchen is central to the plan, with dining at one end and living at the other.
Robust exterior building materials include board-formed concrete, black steel and cedar.
Regular gaps provide visual and physical breaks, while setbacks, height differences and varied architectural forms create rhythm across the street elevation.
One of the drivers in the design was accessibility, through Lifemark, so the galley kitchen is wide.
When it comes to medium-density housing, Ōtautahi-based practice Sheppard & Rout has form. Amanda Harkness considers its latest project, Worcester Terraces.
David Sheppard and Jonty Rout first put their eponymous studio on the map with the award-winning Cranmer Court redevelopment in 1982, saving an historic school from demolition by creating 32 bespoke dwellings within its shell.
Forty-one years later, with a large body of work to its name, the practice has recently completed Fletcher Living’s Worcester Terraces, comprising 68 townhouses and apartments over two and three storeys. The offering proved popular, with the East Frame dwellings selling out almost overnight off the plans. While position was clearly a draw card — bounded by Latimer Square, Rauora Park, the Christchurch Club and mountain and river views — the mix of typologies and elevated design response are what sets this project apart.
“One, two and three-bedroom units are spread across the site, with Ōtākaro’s required ‘landmark corners’ marked by three taller buildings on strata titles,” explains project architect Joff Kennedy. “Regular gaps provide visual and physical breaks, while setbacks, height differences and varied architectural forms create rhythm across the street elevation.”
Robust exterior building materials, such as board-formed concrete, black steel and cedar, are brought into the interiors, with the architects favouring “truthful, honest” materials throughout. The project’s raised building platforms ensure privacy from footpath traffic while mature trees and landscaping diffuse the views across the central courtyard to neighbouring apartments.
“With the transparent, dual-aspect nature of the units, we wanted the kitchen central to the plan, with living at one end and dining at the other,” explains Kennedy. “One of the drivers in the design was accessibility, through Lifemark, so the galley kitchen is wide, the stair, bedrooms and bathrooms are oversized and at least 50 per cent of the dwellings have a ground floor bedroom and bathroom.”
Designed to a Homestar Level 6 rating, considerations such as window size and orientation, insulation, operational costs and water use have all been addressed and sustainable New Zealand wool carpet, oiled white oak flooring and oak veneer cabinetry are included in every dwelling.
Worcester Terraces achieves a high level of quality within a relatively modest budget so no doubt Cantabrians are looking forward to Sheppard & Rout’s next Fletcher Living project, with 38 One Central units north of the Avon River.
The Interior Spaces series is brought to you by GIB® in partnership with ArchitectureNow.
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