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Stand-Alone House Design Ngā Whare Tūwehe

1. Site Design 2. Placing the Building 3. Street to Front Door 4. Outdoor Spaces 5. Accommodating Cars 6. The Building
  • 1.1 Introduction
  • 1.2 Work with the Site
  • 1.3 Design the Site and House together
  • 1.4 Respect the neighbours
  • 1.5 Good quality infill development
  • 2.1 Introduction
  • 2.2 The spaces around the house
  • 2.3 Privacy and outlook
  • 2.4 Designing for the sun
  • 2.5 Types of House
    • 2.5.1 Detached or 'stand-alone' houses
    • 2.5.2 Zero lot line houses
    • 2.5.3 Courtyard Houses
    • 2.5.4 Accessory dwelling
    • 2.5.5 Extended family House
  • 3.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Designing for neighbourhood character
  • 3.3 Designing for safety and amenity
  • 3.4 Creating privacy
  • 4.1 Introduction
  • 4.2 Provide for an outdoor lifestyle
  • 4.3 Design for accessibility
  • 4.4 Optimise your landscaping
  • 4.5 Respond to the neighbourhood
  • 4.6 Design for stormwater treatment
  • 5.1 Introduction
  • 5.2 Integrating parking, garaging and access with the street
  • 5.3 Parking options
    • 5.3.1 Parking beside the house
    • 5.3.2 Parking under the house
    • 5.3.3 Parking behind the house
    • 5.3.4 Parking in front of the house
  • 5.4 Designing the driveway, shared accessway or lane
    • 5.4.1 Designing for safety of children
    • 5.4.2 Driveways for rear sites and shared access-ways
    • 5.4.3 Lanes
  • 5.5 Garages as flexible spaces
  • 6.1 Introduction
  • 6.2 Building form and appearance
    • 6.2.1 Building height and mass
    • 6.2.2 Primary building elements and details
  • 6.3 Weather-tightness
  • 6.4 Building performance
    • 6.4.1 Keeping the heat inside the house
    • 6.4.2 Move the heat around, and ventilate the house
  • 6.5 Planning for all ages and abilities

Case Studies

  • Addison, Takanini
  • Anselmi Ridge, Auckland
  • Arapai-Urale House, Auckland
  • Box™ Bassett Road, Remuera, Auckland
  • Brown Vujcich House, Auckland
  • Courtyard Houses, Seatoun, Wellington
  • Detached House, Remuera , Auckland
  • Lester Street, Hobsonville
  • Living Spaces, Dandenong
  • Preston Starter Home, Otara, Auckland
  • S House, Mount Eden, Auckland
  • Tagata Way, Mangere
  • The Block, on St Johns Road
  • Zero Energy House, Point Chevalier, Auckland

    Preston Starter Home, Otara, Auckland

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    Overview

    Competition winner of NZ Department of Building and Housing ‘Starter Home Design Competition’ – a demonstration project showing good quality, sustainable, cost efficient construction.

    Project Summary

    Project Summary

    ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

    S3 Architects was the overall winner of the ‘Starter Home Design Competition’ run by the New Zealand Department of Building and Housing (DBH). The competition brief was to design an affordable home with a habitable floor area of 120m² a cost of no more than $1,400 per square metre, and the design was to be repeated in a variety of configurations over 160 homes

     
    The winning house design was built as a demonstration project – and the cost to build one house ranges from $1,600 - $1,700 per square metre depending on various specifications and materials. 

     
    The house was built by the Housing New Zealand Corporation in Preston Road, Otara, Auckland to demonstrate that innovative design can result in good quality, energy efficient, affordable housing. 

     
    The scheme explores ways in which existing, low cost, familiar construction methods and materials can be reconfigured to produce a better spatial and environmental experience without increasing costs. Improvements in affordability were possible by exploring new innovative technologies. 

     
    The competition brief asked for a house plan that can easily be adapted to work on a range of orientations, is expandable, and can have a garage or carport added to the building. This case study plan is for a west approach but works equally well when mirrored on a north – south axis. 

     
    This home achieves an excellent rating using the Green Home Scheme. Without optional environmentally sustainable design (ESD) features this house achieves 5 star HERS rating of 95MJ/sqm pa Auckland. (172MJ/sqm pa Wellington and 296 MJ/sqm pa Christchurch).​
    Download the full Case Study

    Related Resources

    • Design Statements - An Essential First Step to Good Design
    • Building a New Home - The Prebuild Process
    • Understand Auckland's Planning Rules
    • Apply Auckland's Planning Rules to a Site
    • Design for Auckland's Planning Rules
    • About the ADM
    • To Our Blog
    • Contact Us

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    Auckland Design Manual

    Welcome

    To Auckland's Design Manual

    The manual provides professional advice, step-by-step best practice processes and detailed design guidance. The manual will enable us all to make informed choice and build homes, and create new streets and neighbourhoods that not only look great but are built to last, sustainable and give best return on investment.

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    Disclamer:

    The Auckland Design Manual provides supplementary guidance to the Unitary Plan on design matters, which will be updated by the Council from time to time. The Manual is not part of the Unitary Plan and the Unitary Plan doesn’t incorporate the Manual by reference in the terms of the provisions of Part 3 of Schedule 1 to the Resource Management Act 1991. While the Manual sits outside the Unitary Plan, advice notes are occasionally included in the text of the Unitary Plan to alert the reader to the existence of relevant guidance in the Unitary Plan.