Eco-Neighbourhood – Avondale, Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland City confronted with this project the challenge to stabilise and carefully upgrade urban development and infrastructural deficits in socially unbalanced, overstretched neighbourhoods.

The City Council has identified the site as a location for an exemplar low-energy development and engaged englarchitecture in collaboration with Sills van Bohemen Architects and Uwe Rieger, from the Architectural Department of the University of Auckland, to design a sustainable neighbourhood on an empty and degraded site in the suburb of Avondale with the focus on energetic and ecological optimisation.

For us planners, the main challenge was to develop a problematic site with an unmistakable identity and to provide residents a home of their own in a neglected space without history or specific context.

In a country with a strong focus on single family housing areas, the search for compact, higher-density designs goes along with a revaluation of density itself, as the term has still a negative touch for New Zealanders and is associated with ‘unhealthy density’ and ‘density stress’.

Therefore, it was not only imperative to create good-quality, attractive urban homes with neutral, flexible floor plans and sheltered private open spaces. We also had to define a local identity, a sense of place for a desolate area trapped between rail tracks and busy streets.

In all cultures, people interact with nature. The existing terrain, however, had some pockets of mature trees but no connection to a nearby park as it was cut off from a bordering creek. To develop a sense of place, we were proposing to link the settlement via a new foot-and-cycle bridge to the existing green areas, while at the same time creating walkways and cycle lanes through the almost inaccessible park to the nearby University grounds and towards the City Centre.

We realised that we had to provide real merits for accepting higher density on a compromised site like this. With the benefits of generous green and open, shared spaces, while improving the micro-climate and biodiversity, we saw a real potential for this eco-neighbourhood.

Our design focus was to minimise the negative impacts on the environment, either from construction or the ongoing life of the building including energy and water use, and production of waste and pollution. This commitment, and Jobst's background with several eco-neighbourhoods back in Germany, helped to address these issues and to create energy-efficient housing modules, resulting in a variety of principles to enhance the feeling of locality and connectedness.

Priorities were a variety of house sizes and apartments, rain gardens, links and creation of walkways and cycle paths, a common house for communal activities, rainwater tanks, PV-Systems and solar hot water, reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, adoption of environmentally friendly materials, permeable pavings, orchards, and connecting existing trees with pockets of native bush.

With the development of two Zero Energy units in ‘Passive House Standard’ and 21 low-energy units, we wanted to contribute to set new standards for the New Zealand housing market. Design features for the dwellings were a compact shape, flexible rooms structure, multiple storage areas, drying closets and extended outside kitchens.

With communal spaces and a good pedestrian access to the nearby reserve, to public transport and local amenities, this project aims to develop a strong, balanced neighbourhood character, hopefully with the impact on a wider sphere.

The concept design of the two Zero Housing units, developed in co-lab with Uwe Rieger, was part of the exhibition ‘Reactive Architecture’ at the Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand.

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Perspective of the low-energy and passive house settlement in Avondale. Two- and three bedroom apartments are located in the buildings to the left and three- and four bedroom house are on the right side. The central landscape area also provides play space for younger residents, a shared garden and a small house for communal activities.	Housing type 1.2 of the Avondale project incorporating three double bedrooms and generous open-plan dining/ kitchen/ living areas, integrated within existing Pohutukawa trees and pockets of native bush.	Elevations of detached three-bedroom homes, designed as a thermal bridge-free construction with a vertical green garden screen for shading, privacy and weather protection.
Site plan of the development. The design focus was to break down the scale in context with the surrounding neighbourhood of single family dwellings and to integrate the houses well into the existing landscape.	The landscape design features on site wastewater treatment with rain gardens, rainwater storage tanks under timber decks, and integration of existing trees into the development. Another priority was to link the site via a new footbridge to a disconnected park to increase the habitat value of the land.	The central idea of the landscape design was to combine small, individual gardens along shared spaces for community food production and communal activities and to enhance privacy with green screens, climbers and hedges instead of rigid fences and walls.
Typical floor plan of a three-bedroom double storey home within a compact building shape to minimize heat loss. The design was incorporating solar hot water systems, PV provision, rainwater collection, generous decks, balconies on every level and covered outside kitchen extensions.	Our design principle was to create a compact house structure with add-ons like balconies, covered walkways, pergolas and entry zones for optimising energy efficiency. To blend in with the landscape and the existing reserve we used vertical green walls and a mesh-like weather screen for climbers. The result worked like a multifunctional device with all diverse functions contained in our box-like structure.	A breakdown of the add-ons for our housing types. All units were designed with ventilation and heat recovery systems. The green screens and green carport roofs were integral parts of our regenerative approach.

Eco-Neighbourhood – Avondale, Auckland, New Zealand

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Housing type 1.2 of the Avondale project incorporating three double bedrooms and generous open-plan dining/ kitchen/ living areas, integrated within existing Pohutukawa trees and pockets of native bush.

Elevations of detached three-bedroom homes, designed as a thermal bridge-free construction with a vertical green garden screen for shading, privacy and weather protection.

Site plan of the development. The design focus was to break down the scale in context with the surrounding neighbourhood of single family dwellings and to integrate the houses well into the existing landscape.

The central idea of the landscape design was to combine small, individual gardens along shared spaces for community food production and communal activities and to enhance privacy with green screens, climbers and hedges instead of rigid fences and walls.

Typical floor plan of a three-bedroom double storey home within a compact building shape to minimize heat loss. The design was incorporating solar hot water systems, PV provision, rainwater collection, generous decks, balconies on every level and covered outside kitchen extensions.

A breakdown of the add-ons for our housing types. All units were designed with ventilation and heat recovery systems. The green screens and green carport roofs were integral parts of our regenerative approach.

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