Thompson Park Apartments

Mount Wellington, Auckland, New Zealand

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Thompson Park Apartments

Mount Wellington, Auckland, New Zealand

Firm

Creative Arch

Type

Residential › Apartment Multi Unit Housing

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2016

SIZE

1,000,000 +

BUDGET

$10M - 50M

Photos

Simon Devitt Photographer (17)

This development is located in the Auckland suburb of Mt Wellington, upon the site of an old Mercury Energy building. . Although it was more cost effective to build new, our sustainable practice and design considerations determined the lower two floors of structure could be retained, and it was possible to increase the scope to include 104 apartments including one and two-bedroom options, most of which have sizeable balconies. On this basis, two lower levels were formed within the concrete existing structure, comprising of car-parking and storage, flanked by new units.

The objective is to create community spaces with generous zones for informal interaction in shared landscapes. Unseen from the outside, the shared courtyard is the connecting link between lower and upper levels of the apartment. Located atop the existing concrete building structure, the common area features extensive planting, overlooked by secure gangways, considerably softening the interior spaces.

The exterior of the apartments incorporates a strongly defined entrance using the architectural language of repetition with dark louvers and vertical proportions breaking up the horizontal form of the building into smaller parts. The contrast of the development in the suburban context is reduced through the use of materials: the roughness of precast concrete panels, clean lines of the vertical black aluminium screening, and soft cedar colours work together to moderate the scale of the development.

All the apartments are positioned and laid out in response to sun with large window openings to maximise views and natural light penetration into the apartments. Master bedrooms are specifically designed to be protruding and behind external vertical screening that provides privacy and filtered light into the space.

Architectural Designer: Mark McLeay, Sam Baxter, Andrew Mirams, David Bullen-Smith
Documentation: Mark Tatton
Interior Designer: Mark McLeay, Andrew Mirams, David Bullen-Smith
Engineer: DHC Consultants
Builder: Clearwater Construction