The Balfour Road apartments are situated on a site with a single narrow street aspect to the east and views to the north. The site has its own constrictive planning controls which dictate the form.
The building is conceptually broken into three blocks separated by two glazed cores. These cores give all residents views to the north and south back towards the museum. This arrangement gives each apartment light from multiple directions and differing views out. It makes almost all units corner apartments with the corresponding improved qualities of light and space.
The building is pushed towards the south of the site by the unique planning controls which also affords apartments the opportunity to look east and west on the angle, being cognisant of the possibility the neighbouring fire station site is redeveloped. For this reason also the biggest units address the street where outlook is protected.
Five levels of apartments sit on two levels of efficient basement parking benched into the site and taking advantage of the planning controls to extend to the west.
Apartments naturally can end up with extensive glazing. To break up the forms and provide privacy to bedrooms sliding folding perforated screens have been introduced. Full height sliding joinery sits behind allowing for a variety of opening configurations. These elements articulate the street frontage making it a pleasant building to walk past with the interplay of projecting bays and recessed decks evoking the traditional villa streetscape.
The building seeks to achieve a lightness and permanence befitting its location with concrete panels, folded aluminium cladding and stone decks. As Auckland seeks to densify this building is conceived as an exemplar of suburban apartments that have a spacial and material quality providing a valid alternative to the dominant suburban house typology.
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