“The rehabilitation of this 1970s office block turns it into much-needed apartments beside the river in Kirikiriroa. As well as saving significant amounts of carbon-heavy concrete, the building provides a variety of housing types, from expansive luxury apartments to more modest terrace-style townhouses.” — Te Rōpū

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The Hills Residences began with a one-minute phone call. “Like a lot of our projects, Matt Stark [of Stark Property] flicked me a ring and said, ‘Hey, I’m looking at this old laboratory and I’ve got an idea to turn it into apartments; what do you think?’” remembers Daniel Smith, director of Edwards White Architects. Next thing Smith knew, he was on a site visit to the long-disused Hill Lab. “It had pipes all around the outside, squatters living in it, lots of leaks and was full of pigeons,” he says of his tepid first impressions. “But with a lot of these older buildings we do, you look past that stuff and see the bones of it.”

The location was what settled  it, says Edwards White associate Georgia Peacocke. “It was epic, right on the riverfront, connected to the city and all the potential that presented.” The project would be stage one of the broader Hills Village development, with hospitality, commercial and further residential spaces to follow. Collectively, the architects and developers were confident they could create “something of worth”, but it was a first for all involved. Although they had collaborated on other reuse projects in Kirikiriroa Hamilton (the Made redevelopment is of particular note), this was Stark Property’s first foray into apartments. “And while we’d done a couple of apartment buildings before, it turns out a reuse project is much harder than expected,” Smith admits.

They had to take the building right back to the frame. Financially, it would have made sense to bowl and start fresh, but Matt and his wife and co-director Jaimee were committed to its redevelopment – a genuinely admirable move rarely seen in property development, where budget trumps all. “In post-analysis, we found we’ve saved 730,00 kilograms of carbon by reusing the old lab, which is the equivalent of planting 12,000 trees,” says Smith. “The environmental impact is mind-boggling, but there’s architectural merit in it too; a rawness you get out of existing buildings that you can’t imitate.”

As apartment living is still relatively new to Kirikiriroa, the Starks didn’t know what the market demanded, so they requested a varied offering. “Matt’s parents wanted an apartment on the river, so he already had one buyer ready to go,” says Smith. Using that unit as a starting point, the layout unfolded from there. The architects blocked out a series of one-, two- and three-bedroom homes within the existing envelope, then tacked on terraces, courtyards and a 25-metre swimming pool. There are 19 apartments all up, ranging from a 40-square-metre studio to two-storey homes and penthouses.

”We typically run quite a loose ship on these reuse projects, as we don’t necessarily know where it’s going to land until we start pulling it apart,” Smith says of the build. They encountered significant structural hurdles and slope instability around the river, so the first step was strengthening the building to meet earthquake requirements. Aesthetically, Peacocke says they wanted the design to touch on the building’s scientific heritage “without going overboard”. Rendering, plastering and painting two existing concrete walls that bookended the building, they incorporated brick into the façade to impart a fresh residential feel. Timber soffits, courtyards and green spaces soften the strong exterior. Inside, exposed concrete is offset by warm timbers, stone and plenty of natural light.

Stark Property sold the apartments off the plans with the intention that owners would have standard design sign-off. “A ‘kitchen A, B or C’ type of thing,” explains Smith. However, things didn’t quite play out that way. “We essentially ended up doing 19 bespoke homes. Stark Property was selling these into a market it hadn’t seen – some of the penthouse apartments were $3 million, where previously the most expensive would have been half that – so part of the deal with those top-floor homes was a fully customisable space.” Somehow, the tailor-made approach trickled down.

Peacocke met with each buyer, discussing their design brief, just as you would with a new house build. “It was fascinating to see everyone’s personalities come through,” she says. “Nineteen individual layouts, kitchens, bathrooms and flooring treatments.” It was the most challenging part of the project, she says, but it was also the most rewarding. “Although I don’t think the owners in the next stage of the development will quite have the same creative freedom…” Smith interjects, “Never say never. I had another one of Matt’s famous phone calls the other day asking to merge two of the apartments.”

As they move onto that next phase (the new-build Anzac Apartments), the architects frequently revisit the notion of creating a sense of community. The idea is woven through the Hills Village masterplan, which places significant attention on the spaces between the built forms. “You’re always looking for opportunities for the occupants to mingle and meet. You have the pool, the landscaped areas, the paths, the walkway to Made; lots of opportunities for them to become their own community,” says Smith. As part of this commitment to retaining maximum green space, they have introduced an 80-car underground garage, hiding all vehicles off street level with internal access to all proposed buildings. “It has electric car charging too, and every apartment has a small storage area in the carpark for bikes and bits.”

As we continue to explore the avenues of adaptive reuse in Aotearoa, Hills Apartments has set an excellent standard as a project that strikes a balance between heritage, environment and design considerations. Of course, the challenges cannot be overlooked. It’s a complex domain, hamstrung by budget and building regulations, but with market leaders like the Starks striving ahead, we see what is possible. “It’s not easy, but we can get better at it and make it more financially stable because there are so many opportunities to do it out there,” says Smith. “There’s more of a desire for it in the market now, and hopefully, with the change in sustainability credits, carbon requirements and the building code, things will happen.”

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