Te Uru Terraces is a well worthy winner of a Supreme Award, showing the way forward for the rest of Tāmaki Makaurau how to manage density done well. Eight separate buildings provide a number of townhouses, with a common language of forms being individualised by colour, materials and textures into homes for all.
The cultural history of the site is written into the façade in places, with careful weaving of patterns into the brickwork referencing the welcoming action that the buildings do, as both a karanga and a hongi to the incoming visitors.
This is a generous building that interacts with the visitor as it peeks back and forth, set comfortably back from the hard urban edge and providing a range of experiences for human inhabitants with access to vital outdoor spaces to make medium density fully enjoyable.
These buildings were not aimed at the expensive end of the market, but instead reached the affordable limits that Tāmaki Makaurau so desperately needs to continue to flourish. This project does the hard mahi and is deserving of the highest praise.