Cohaus terraces and apartments

Topography:

This is a generally flat site with a 3m fall away from the main road, Surrey Crescent, to the northeast. The site is located on a street corner and has three street frontages - see site plan. The unusual position terminates two streets of single-storey character houses at the main road and acts as an interface between this low residential scale and the varied and higher density structures along Surrey Crescent.

Block structure:

The two blocks form a perimeter-type development around a central courtyard oriented north. This works well for optimal solar gain. The taller front block wraps around the two main street frontages providing visual and aural privacy for the main shared courtyard/garden area that is at the heart of Cohaus. The development has gardens and entrances directly off the street.

Dwellings on the upper levels and those of the terraced house ‘Courtyard Building’ are accessed through broad, open passageways and through the corner carpark and yard.

Identity and street character:

The immediate neighbourhood has a variety of zones. Therefore the nearby buildings are a mix of historic houses, medium density residential dwellings, mixed use commercial and four to five level apartment buildings.

Overall:

The buildings present a friendly interface with the surrounding streets and the neighbourhood.

As a sustainable community the site was purposely selected because of its central location and easy access and/or walking distance to public transport, the city centre, local shops, schools and essential services.

As the development is located on a reasonably busy arterial road the car park is accessed by way of a new 4.5m wide vehicle crossing off the adjacent side road.

Landscaping:

The central garden courtyard is the focus of the development. With pathways throughout, this garden is a popular place for children to play. A large communal garden house is used by residents for meetings and parties.
Deep soil areas were provided with plantings of native trees.

A bed of high quality composted soil has been gradually developed over three seasons throughout the central productive garden.

The road frontages of the site were planted with native specimen trees, including Kotukutuku, Tawhirikaro, Kowhai and Puriri trees.

Low height brick walls delineate the front boundary of the property, while also providing informal seating. 

Outdoor spaces:

Each unit has either a patio and direct access to the common courtyard area, or a balcony ranging between 7m² – 16m².

Privacy for the ground floor units varies depending on the owner’s wishes, with some being made more private by way of planting and/or screens.

The upper level ‘living decks’ of the Surrey building are not separated between units. It is possible to traverse from one end of the block to the other across the face of internal living spaces. Even though there is some impact on personal privacy, residents consider these decks a great success for creating a sense of openness and community at each building level.

Effects on neighbours:

Some generally minor visual dominance and privacy effects for the immediately neighbouring properties were identified. As a result the application was limited notified and a planning hearing required. This planning process enabled those adjacent or affected parties to submit on the application.

The 20 units range in size from one bedroom to five bedrooms.

There are shared facilities including a guest bedroom, a common room, storage, laundry, bike parking, cars and car parking, covered clothes lines, garden shed and compost bins.

Dwelling layouts follow these common principles:

• Dual aspect (at least).
• Minimum space wasted in circulation.
• Living spaces orient inwards to the centre of the site away from the three adjacent roads.
• Large outdoor living spaces (deck or patio) that are sheltered from sun and rain.
• Combined kitchen / dining / living space as generous as possible with a wide sunny aspect to a private outdoor living space and, beyond that, the courtyard.
• Fully fitted kitchens with broom cupboard.
• Courtyard building units have attic storage.
• All bedrooms fit a queen bed and wardrobe but are otherwise modest in size.
• Compact bathrooms, usually with a shower only or shower over bath for flexibility.
• All bathrooms have natural light and natural ventilation from a window or skylight.
• Surrey building units have lockers in the common storage mezzanine.

Site response:

The proposed site layout is designed to form a built edge that relates to the Surrey Crescent street frontage. The buildings are stepped to blend with the neighbouring residential environment. This layout also responds to the natural topography, stepping and reducing in height from the site’s high point at Surrey Crescent.

Form and appearance:

The apartment “Surrey” block has a character which visually mediates, in scale as well as character, between the nearby very urban apartment blocks and the traditional villas lining the smaller local streets that run down from the ridgeline.

This largest building is broken up by the recessive brick linking elements. It turns the corner neatly to present a new frontage that relates well to both the smaller local road and the relocated and refurbished Cohaus villa.
Each unit has a clearly identified front entrance address.

Utilities:

Cohaus has a utilities system of integrated customer networks to provide power, hot water, cold water and internet to units. No units require external utility accounts. The system meters at point-of-use and automatically generates combined monthly invoices. Household utility bills are extremely low: units average $180 per month for water, internet, electricity, and laundry. Part of the electricity billing is used to repay the solar photovoltaic installation, which was funded by debt. When this debt is paid down in two years the unit cost of power paid by residents can be reduced further.

Rubbish:

This is managed by private collection. Bins are collected from the parking area which has sufficient space for truck manoeuvring.

Recycling:

Waste is separated into streams by residents: general recycling, cardboard, soft plastic, e-waste, batteries and landfill. Food waste is diverted to on-site composting and worm farms, or to a central Council organic waste bin.

Garden and grounds:

The residents who are interested in gardening put in as much time as they wish to maintain the productive garden and mow the lawns. The community has regular working bees to maintain general landscaping. Individual ground level unit owners improve and maintain the garden immediately around their own unit.