Halswell Junction

The challenge

We were approached by Community Homes Limited to design a concept for a multi-residential medium density development proposed in Halswell.

The scope of our engagement involved our urban designers, landscape architects, planners and surveyors to design the layout of buildings, access and landscape treatment, prior to the design being reviewed by Kāinga Ora – a partner for this project with our Building Company Client.

Central to our approach was wanting to create a housing development that encourages and enables a thriving community. Our design promotes outdoor living spaces and best practice urban design principles to create an environmentally sound, people-centric development.

The solution

Our teams worked collaboratively across disciplines to develop plans that incorporated a cohesive urban design and landscape strategy across the entire site. It places considerable emphasis on environmental sustainability and connectivity, with the purpose of fostering long-term, community growth, and utilisable community space- with few ‘barriers’ to future residents- with the aim of instilling a sense of community.

In keeping with our client’s requirements to create a people-centric development, we put emphasis on engagement with the street, sensible placement of windows for passive surveillance, specimen trees where possible that did not shade outdoor living spaces, and clear and legible pedestrian and vehicular accessways. The site itself was integrated into the surrounding fabric of the neighbourhood with softened interfaces with vegetation, and permeability of various fencing typologies where possible.

Find out how our multidisciplinary approach can simplify your next project.