Puroto Street

Puroto Street is an affordable social housing development for the New Zealand social agency Kainga Ora. The project is located adjacent to waters edge in the Orakei basin in Auckland. The brief called for the replacement of two existing post war state houses from the early 1950’s to be demolished and replaced with nine walkup apartments - six two-bedroom units and three three-bedroom units. The brief also called for car and cycle parking for all units. All Kainga Ora projects have very clear spatial guidelines and place a large emphasis on community participation and natural surveillance. The project is designed with a very clear and simple partii and is imagined as three distinct solid masses containing the apartments. Separating these blocks is a recessive stair core that connects all units. The architectural massing responds directly to the topography and shape of the overall site. Along the curved street edge, there is a height difference of approximately 4 meters. To reinforce the street edge the project massing follows the change of the topography by incrementally stepping each building as well as shifting them relative to the curvature of the street. From the street, the three buildings are visually identical with the same materiality and massing to accentuate the articulation of the stepping and shifting of building blocks. There is a strong emphasis on the verticality of the buildings through the use of material and colour. Black in-set balconies are stacked on one side which highly contrast the linear white brick facade. The two stairwells located between the buildings are capped with a black vertical louvre system to reinforce the verticality of the architecture. The unit layout is orientated east-west, having living spaces face north- west with views of Orakei Basin and the Auckland harbour beyond. The front face of the building gives street presence which also provides a legible and separate address for each building and in turn each apartment. Bedrooms are located behind the living spaces and face east, receiving morning sunlight. There are three pedestrian entries onto to the site along Puroto Street, that are connected by a central path across the site linking public amenities such as public gardens and a potential playground. Vehicle entry is located at southern end of the site where it conflicts the least with pedestrian traffic. The monochromatic material palette in this project aimed to create a clean and modern feel to the design. The majority of the exterior cladding are in a custom created white brick. Balconies, balustrades and window joinery are finished in black to contrast the white facade and to emphasise the simple massing of the blocks. All balconies windows and openings are treated with full, floor to ceiling glazing with toughened glass units, to maximise the views across the water.