Student rooming | Architecture Now

Structure pratice Ashton Mitchell shouldn’t be new to pupil housing — the Lorne Road constructing operated by UniLodge is its fifth accomplished and it has an additional two breaking floor. Director Clifford Paul has in depth data of their design — Lorne Road is his third and he frequently works with the College of Auckland on post-occupancy evaluations by user-group workshops.

UniLodge Auckland Central is situated at 66–72 Lorne Road, on the southern finish the place it intersects Mayoral Drive, on the sting of Auckland’s ‘Studying Quarter’ — the campuses of the College of Auckland and Auckland College of Expertise (AUT). The mission integrates a brand new 19-storey lodging tower above an present heritage constructing and has lately achieved a NZGBC 5-Inexperienced Star Design and As Constructed NZ v1.0 licensed ranking.

There are 758 beds inside the growth. A number of are in ‘residences’ — four-bedroom models, every with en suites and a shared kitchen and eating space — however the overwhelming majority are particular person studio models with their personal kitchenettes, examine desks and bogs. It isn’t anticipated to be favoured by many first-year college students looking for a halls expertise and catered meals however, quite, by college students, predominantly in later years of examine, looking for extra independence. At this scale, the ability can assist full-time employees and facilities — a café, gymnasium, theatre, two music rooms, a interest room, school rooms, breakout areas, two out of doors terraces and lounges with pool and desk tennis tables together with a 60-seat communal eating space with double kitchens.

UniLodge Auckland Central is the newest in a market response to the scarcity of pupil housing in Auckland. Gentrification, elevated home costs and Wholesome Properties laws have resulted in a lowered provide of tenancies for college students all through the internal metropolis. Coupled with this are housing suppliers’ responses to the 2019 dying of a pupil in a Canterbury corridor of residence that went undiscovered for a lot of weeks. The result’s amenities with a higher deal with pastoral care.

Paul is genuinely within the typology, its evolution and the expertise of the residents.He clearly is aware of what he’s doing. As Paul informed Anne Gibson of The New Zealand Herald: “You don’t need to be their mother or father, however you additionally need to guarantee they’ve a superb expertise and are protected and blissful.” His diligence is obvious within the planning of the constructing and in the place he locations the ‘power’ of the mission — primarily it’s within the community-focused areas and amenities that encourage college students to socialize, to not isolate of their rooms.

For Ashton Mitchell, the mission began in 2018 when approached by property investor Cedar Pacific to help with growth of the Lorne Road website. Design, building and the interruption of the Covid-19 pandemic (frequent to all initiatives over this era) led to building being accomplished in 2025. Preparations have been beneath means since then to obtain the primary pupil residents for the beginning of the 2026 educational yr.

On the location was an present Class B-listed brick heritage constructing, which has had an extended and various historical past. Initially a coach-builders, the place automobiles have been assembled on one ground and offered on the opposite, it has additionally been used as a dance corridor, a manufacturing facility for Fisher & Paykel manufacturing, Housing Company places of work and, most lately, lecture rooms for ACG Senior School. Whereas no heritage material of the inside remained because of these earlier makes use of, the ornamental brick façade, its metal home windows and contribution to each Lorne and Rutland Streets have been extremely valued within the constructing’s itemizing.

To the rear of the constructing have been a number of land parcels “solid off” from the development of Mayoral Drive between 1974 and 1985, leading to what Paul describes as a “Bermuda Triangle” of urbanity — an absence of metropolis the place little occurred and the sides to Mayoral Drive have been poor. The primary design transfer was to increase the location to incorporate these parcels — enabling the brand new growth to handle all three sides of the block.

The second design transfer was to mass and place the tower sympathetically to the heritage façades and, then, to rearrange the programme so that every one block faces are positively engaged with. The result’s a constructing with three separate floor flooring — the scholar housing addressing the nook of Lorne Road and Mayoral Drive, a industrial ground addressing Lorne Road and an additional industrial ground addressing the nook of Lorne Road and Rutland Road.

The collaboration by the workforce with Heritage New Zealand and Auckland Council heritage officers has been productive. The façade of the prevailing constructing has been preserved, the metal home windows retained and an ungainly cover on Rutland Road eliminated to disclose the unique terracotta frieze. The brand new tower is clad in up to date supplies that complement the prevailing bricks and the vertical modulation and expression contrasts properly with the horizontal emphasis of the heritage façade. An preliminary design proposal to position an out of doors courtyard straight behind the Lorne Road façade was resisted by heritage officers. The redesign and omission of the courtyard led to an alignment of bedrooms with present home windows, which is rather more sympathetic to the prevailing structure and gives essentially the most interesting studio models within the growth.

Positioning the principle entrance on the nook of Lorne Road and Mayoral Drive works properly in giving the opposite ‘floor flooring’ their very own identities and the potential to be tenanted by programmes circuitously associated to pupil housing. It additionally enabled Ashton Mitchell to design a up to date entry that’s ‘of’ the tower, distinct from the heritage constructing. The lobby is double top with provision for a café and the safety traces have been fastidiously thought-about to supply a controlled-but-welcoming threshold into the constructing. Entry playing cards are elementary to the structure — utilization is monitored and, most significantly, lack of use alerts employees that residents will not be energetic and needs to be checked on.

Communal social areas are predominantly on this floor ground, with quieter examine areas, assembly rooms and ‘library’ on Stage 1. Right here, western skylights have been cleverly added to sunlight these in any other case landlocked areas. Ranges 2 and three have lounges on the northern finish, which overlook a terrace on the roof of the heritage constructing. Set under the parapet, this can be a beneficiant panorama and communal area. A spiral staircase connects it externally to the terrace on the bottom ground under.

Will probably be attention-grabbing to see how this typology does evolve, the place the ambition grows and the place the long run alternatives lie. Whereas the realm dedicated to communal areas at Lorne Road is admirable, most of those areas have a scale and a quantity that don’t replicate the variety of occupants they host. The precedent of residential eating halls — ‘Nice Rooms’ — with double-height area and the chance to attach throughout flooring has not been taken. With the elimination of 10 Stage 1 studio rooms, the video games room and communal kitchen on the bottom stage may have develop into a fantastic room and benefited from afternoon solar although the western skylights over the library and examine rooms.

What is going to stay on this evolution is the fixed stress in these types of heterotopia initiatives — inside and between: the general public and the personal, the non-public and the communal, town and the college campus. The Lorne Road communal areas — the assembly rooms, the maker area, the café – replicate what is obtainable (actually) throughout the street on the Sir Paul Reeves Constructing at AUT and Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero – the Auckland Central Library (and it has precise books and a borrowing system). There seems to be a threat – very similar to the ‘barista factors’ in up to date workplace tenancies – of the personal duplicating the general public and the road and town struggling as a consequence.

From Stage 3 up, the ground plan repeats, with the communal lounges on the northern finish changed by the four-bed residences. These 13 flooring are doing the heavy lifting of occupancy, with roughly 50 beds on every stage — an depth that should put stress on the centralised vertical circulation (three lifts and two fireplace stairs) throughout peak instances of utilization.

These flooring have typical studio rooms — fashions refined by iteration by Ashton Mitchell (sadly not photographed). For $442 every week (full-year worth), a pupil will get a 2.7m-wide room that’s roughly 4.5m lengthy. Down one aspect is a wardrobe (with storage for suitcases over), kitchenette and examine desk; the different aspect has a toilet (WC, sink and bathe) and a king-single-sized mattress. The window is openable and the availability and exhaust for particular person mechanical air flow is integrated properly within the window head.

Every kitchenette has a 1.4m fridge with a freezer, a double ceramic hob and a microwave — giving college students freedom to cater for themselves.

Some residents profit from bespoke layouts and more room, due to the character of the ground plate, however all have an identical lavatory cubicles (prefabricated in Australia). Apparently, present college students have extra curiosity in health than in alcohol (therefore the gymnasium on the bottom ground), which is a reduction because the prospect of spending the mornings of orientation week hungover in these small, mechanically ventilated cubicles wrapped round a bathroom seat would — for the creator — be a brand new definition of hell.

By the point this text is revealed, the primary semester of 2026 may have began and UniLodge Auckland Central will likely be occupied by kind of 758 residents — all test-driving this social condenser. With Paul, we are going to watch how the constructing is acquired by the scholars and the way the areas are used, searching for methods to refine the structure additional.