| 61 T T Kim Newth Residents collaborate on award-winning ‘Cohaus’ The main Cohaus development has 19 units, ranging from one-bedroom to five-bedrooms. Studio Nord Architects: Cohaus ARCHITECTURE 09 953 1465 info@legacyjoinery.co.nz www.legacyjoinery.co.nz It’s hard to go past the Legacy Joinery team for great value and quality. Our skilful, qualified craftspeople can guide you through the process to make sure you get a quality product that suits your needs. Legacy Joinery are proud to support Studio Nord Architects. LEGACY JOINERY Quality finish, every time A heritage neighbourhood in Grey Lynn is home to one of Auckland’s most interesting medium density housing developments. Designed by Studio Nord, this ‘Cohaus’ project recently won a multi-unit housing award at the 2023 Auckland Architecture Awards. Cohaus also won the SEANZ prize for Best Environmental Impact in 2021. Coming from a culture of European design, Studio Nord is known for having an open-minded yet rigorous approach to architecture. Cohaus has been a central focus for practice founders Thom Gill and Helle Westergaard over the past five years, with the couple and their family now residing there. “We started this project with two households – we were one of them – and that meant we had to be co-developers,” says Thom. “We took all the risk up to a certain point, providing the seeding cost for the land and capital, as well as being the project architect and doing project management.” The Grey Lynn site is well connected to the city via an arterial road and major bus route (Surrey Crescent) and close to local shops, schools and parks. Yet many developers would probably pass up the idea of creating good housing density on a brownfields site such as this, given how much simpler it is to go with a greenfields development. “We are trying to challenge that approach by showing what you can achieve on a site like this. If we could facilitate or even help run a similar project for a different group of people, we would do it; we love where we live. We have lots of good experience to share with others.” Developing the land for multi-housing involved firstly moving an existing villa to the site’s corner, (where it now aligns with other villas on Browning Street). The main Cohaus development has 19 units, ranging from one-bedroom to five-bedrooms, comprising a three-storey building on Surrey Crescent and Browning Street, and a two-storey building on the Firth Road boundary. The buildings are clad tastefully in timber and brick, in keeping with the heritage zoning. Residents share a north-facing courtyard garden with a common garden house at the centre. Residents all had input into the evolution of the overall design and their individual units, and the site layout itself fed into the shape of the buildings. Each unit has personalised details, reflecting residents’ choices. “One rule we set was that all units have dual aspects, meaning they go front to back and get good natural light throughout the day. That also helps hugely with natural ventilation. “We developed the shared facilities through a collaborative design process. Having large bike storage was a no brainer and shared carparking was in there from the beginning, with parking on the edge not in the middle. We had money left in contingency when we finished construction and used that to buy six cars in common and that also enabled us to build the garden house.” The Cohaus garden house (6mx6m) functions like a small community hall, used for dinner parties, arts and crafts, meetings and other gatherings. Unifying the design was a commitment to create future facing housing with low running costs – units are very well-insulated - and built to last with good quality, low maintenance materials. At the height of summer, north and west facing spaces are shaded by roofs and balconies to prevent overheating. “We also needed to build a true sense of home with community spaces really crucial to that. What people find really appealing is how we have arranged the buildings around the edges, enclosing the large, sheltered garden in the middle.” Residents own their individual units but can live as privately as they wish. “The main difference is that when you come and go, you’re likely to run into somebody and then it’s up to you if you just say hi or stop and chat.”
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