Sunnyheights subdivision will be a Special Housing Area (SHA) located five minutes from both Orewa town centre and the motorway.

The client was trying to achieve 600 residential lots on a site with geotechnical instability, a significant ecological area (SEA) covering 23% of its total area at the centre, and an extremely steep slope (average 1:3) in most of its developable area.

The team of Boffa Miskell and Beca proposed a new compelling design that resulted in almost no retaining walls and significant improvements for urban design outcomes; with added amenities including parks, shops and a childcare facility connected by a central pedestrian/cycling shared path defined to provide opportunities for casual social interaction and thus promoting a healthy community.

Location

Auckland

Worked with

Beca
Tonkin + Taylor

Project date

2014 - 2017

The design includes a mix of different housing typologies including 400sqm fully detached houses, terraced housing, and two-storey apartment buildings blended amongst the terraces.

The fully detached housing typologies are located at the site’s edges to provide a good interface towards adjacent existing and proposed traditional 600sqm lots. Higher-density housing is located closer to the SEA to take advantage of the natural open space and compensate for its lack of private outdoor living space. The streets will be pedestrian-friendly and will cater for all transport modes.

Our consultants provided master planning, urban design, landscape design and ecology specialist advice for resource consent.

Later, the design team defined urban design guidelines for individual house designs and, at Changda’s request, we also produced a promotional video for marketing purposes, working closely with Buildmedia.

We are currently providing assessment of individual house designs, and detailed design for open spaces and streetscape design for the next stage of the project.

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