Maori art major feature of Newmarket block
What is thought to be the largest New Zealand apartment block to feature extensive Maori art work opened in Auckland this month.
The art and carvings are used on the interior and exterior of the new five-level $50 million Newmarket apartment block Hypatia and Helen O’Sullivan, chief executive of apartment developer Ockham Residential, said the 60-unit building on 246 Khyber Pass Rd was unusual for the extent of Maori art on display.
“This is possibly the largest apartment building in Auckland to incorporate indigenous art as part of its fabric,” O’Sullivan said.
Master carver Reuben Kirkwood made wood panels. Moulds were then made from his designs for concrete to be poured into, to create the extensive cladding art on spandrels on the Huntly Ave, Khyber Pass and Park Rd faces of the block.
The huge block’s arrival in the quiet Huntly Ave, filled with many wooden singlesection houses, did not delight everyone.
Other residents of the street have said they had spent fortunes doing up their homes and feared increased traffic on what is now a relatively quiet tree-lined street leading to Carlton Gore Rd.
Tania Wong, Ockham’s lead architect on Hypatia, this week showed how Kirkwood’s original wood panels were used as art throughout the building. Features carved in totara around the door to the communal spa and lap pool at the main ground-floor entrance are particularly ornate.
Ockham said there was good reason to incorporate indigenous art in the building, named after the Greek philosopher and one of the first notable female mathematicians of ancient history.
“Historically, the site was home to many Maori tribes. Ockham has worked closely with Maori art designer Reuben Kirkwood, the kaiwhakairo or head carver for Ngai Tai Ki Tamaki, to make Hypatia one of the most artistic buildings of recent history. A modern re-working of traditional Maori design elements has been incorporated into the facade to reference the past while looking confidently to a new future.”
Features include haehae (parallel grooves and ridges), niho taniwha (dragon’s tooth), unaunahi (fish scales), manaia (mythical being with the head of a bird) and rauponga (combination of haehae and niho taniwha at an angle to suggest the growth of tree fern).
O’Sullivan said the block, with 80 basement carparks, was built on land designated as a Special Housing Area, so 10 per cent of the units had to be sold as affordable. Six units on the Khyber Pass Rd face were sold for $427,500 each.
Affordable is classified as 75 per cent of the Auckland metropolitan median house price. To qualify to buy an affordable place, the purchasers had to agree to live in them and not to sell them for three years. Those six places have no balconies or carparks and are onebedroom, 47sq m with combined living/kitchen/ dining areas.
Fifty-eight of the 60 Hypatia units have been sold. Ockham has two penthouse units left: one for $2.25m, the other at $2.2m.