The Waterfront, Seatoun, Wellington
Highly Commended Year of the Built Environment Awards 2005
Winner NZIA New Zealand Award 2004
Winner NZIA Local Award 2003
Studio Pacific were approached in 2001 to masterplan this new residential precinct, situated to the east of the coastal suburb of Seatoun. The precinct merges seamlessly with the low-key seaside village of Seatoun while also incorporating qualities of the adjacent coastal reserve.
Seatoun’s pohutukawa-lined street grid was extended through the site to the harbour, with pedestrian access-ways providing local access to Seatoun’s wild foreshore and to the neighbouring coastal reserve, which features many popular walking tracks. Throughout, the new suburb is a landscape of carefully detailed boardwalks, timber seating, cobbled lanes and plantings of native grasses. A sculptural folly, clad in textured concrete patterned with a silhouette of Seatoun’s Steeple Rock, sits at the heart of the development as a figurative anchor for the new subdivision.
The design also incorporates a diverse range of housing options that includes large waterfront sites, shoreline houses, beach houses and Studio Pacific’s own innovative courtyard-houses. Groups of different housing types are clustered together to create natural pockets of housing rather than artificially staged layouts.
With a wealth of detail and coastal character, the Seatoun Waterfront is a considered extension of an established coastal suburb. In its thoughtful analysis of the local context and imaginative response to the surrounding landscape, it challenges the typical approach to subdivision developments.
Client: Globe Holdings Ltd.
