Anzac Avenue Student Accommodation - Ashton Mitchell Architects

CLIENT

NZ Education Holdings

Pamoja Capital

LOCATION

CBD, Auckland

COMPLETED

2020

Translating to 'the view of Tōangaroa', the project provides cost effective student accommodation with stunning views of Auckland Harbour.

Translating to ‘the view of Tōangaroa’, the project provides cost effective student accomodation with stunning views of Auckland Harbour.

This narrow inner city site, sandwiched on a steep piece of former shoreline between Anzac Avenue and Beach Road, provided an opportunity for a proposed building to address both the University campus and the city’s waterfront via two street frontages.

The site is informed by the neighbouring historic Station Hotel and is surrounded by office buildings, student accommodation and apartments of medium density.

Architecturally the floor plan is a response to the site’s narrow configuration, steep topography and the tight development controls, with a focus on responding to and reinforcing both the Beach Road and Anzac Avenue environments. In order to engage and connect the occupants with the street environment, double and triple height communal spaces allow views through the building to the harbour beyond.

This transparency at ground level at both frontages allows for visual connection around, into and through the building forming an active façade.

The overall massing of the building comprises of two towers which step up the hillside, reinforcing the two street frontages and helping mitigate the scale of the proposal.

It is important that the building’s function as student accommodation is legible from the exterior and that the facade treatment is distinct from the surrounding existing office buildings. The design also distinguishes itself from some of the more prosaic examples of the archetype evident in the surrounding area.

A generous communal roof terrace opens over the lower tower roof. As an abstraction of the activity within, the façade design is based around modulating the elevation while also providing an attractive exo-skeleton for the building via pre-cast concrete panels.

Patterning created by the ordering of the module and an intricate colour scheme is intended to break down and articulate the surface of the building.