Latimer Gardens
This was a competition entry for an urban village on a site the North
end of Latimer Square. The proposal consists of three blocks of terrace
houses, a block of terrace houses with shops beneath, an apartment
building with shops on the ground floor facing Madras Street and a
restaurant on the corner. The commercial parts face outwards, while the
residential portion all opens onto a large tree-fringed courtyard lawn
and shared garden. It was not placed. Aerial view of the complex from the north
The project as described in the competition entry
The competition brief calls for an urban village, implying not
only a group of dwellings but the armature for a complete and distinct
community. For a community to be more than just a number of people,
they need to interact and not simply share an address line on their
mail.
A community must have a focus and a place to interact.
Traditionally this function was served by the village green. This
space, often an open grassed area around which the village was built,
was the site of children’s games, community festivities, public
rituals, ceremonies, commerce and a vast array of day-to-day
activities. It was a shared front yard for the community, but it was
used for many things we now think of as back-yard activities, living as
we do in suburban streets where the street is all too often not a
community. The village green is in some ways analogous to the marae,
though the rituals and traditions are different. It could perhaps be
understood as a combination of the marae as formal meeting space and
the less ceremonial and more private (to the community) space around
which the village itself is focussed. The village green, like the
marae, is the space that all members of and visitors to the community
understand to be the physical locus of that community.
This design should be understood as a village of 51 dwellings
grouped around a village green. All of the houses and apartments open
onto the green, and have no other access. The green is a large level
lawn, about 35 by 55 metres, with paths around the perimeter and a wide
band of grass and gardens with large deciduous trees. The green is
accessed by three pedestrian entrances, two as formal gateways through
the blocks of houses, and one a less formal side entrance between two
buildings. The eastern edge of the green (at the foot of the apartment
building) is a community garden shared by all residents, but especially
occupants of the apartment building without gardens of their own. It
produces vegetables and herbs and has a few fruit trees, some
espaliered against the base of the apartment building. A generous
barbecue pavilion faces the edge of the lawn, backing onto the
community garden.

The courtyard looking north to the Armagh Street gateway. The barbecue pavilion is to the left
The north, south and east sides of the green are enclosed by
three blocks of terraced houses, while the west side of the green is
enclosed by a taller building with apartments in the upper three floors
accessed off the green, and shops facing out onto Madras Street at
ground level.
The complex draws upon local traditional architectural forms
and motifs. For the first hundred years of our city's history gothic
was the primary mode of our civic architecture, our founding architects
encouraged by the writings of Pugin and Ruskin. This was not only
our churches, but our incomparable Canterbury Provincial Buildings, the
museum, the university, various colleges, the railway station, post
offices, the hospital and many other commercial and institutional
buildings. Some were carpenter gothic, some brick, and the most
characteristic buildings of local Port Hills basalt and scoria, with
the freestone elements in Port Hills trachyte or Oamaru limestone. Our
forefathers built major public buildings in this manner well into the
1950s, and a very few have been built more recently still. The precise
meaning of this architecture may have changed over time, but it still
speaks strongly to us.
Our great modernists, Peter Beaven and in their earlier years
Warren and Mahoney, clearly and openly drew upon our gothic heritage in
their characteristic work. Modernism is no longer new and is no longer
our only zeitgeist (if it ever was). Now that we have lost so much of
our architectural heritage it is time to draw upon this design resource
and remind ourselves that this place is still Christchurch.
This project draws upon many sources, including the Canterbury
Provincial Buildings, the sorely missed former Normal School on the
equivalent site on Cramner Square, as well as some of Ben Mountfort,
Cecil Wood, and Miles Warren's work at Christs College, and some of the
gracefully understated work of Richard Harmon. It is to be expected
that the interiors of this complex will be altered overtime, but the
primary structure and exterior shell is intended to be durable. By
ignoring the whims of fashion, being dateable only by its techniques
and materials, it is intended to be largely immune to going out of
fashion. This urban village intends to be beautiful and likeable
entirely on its own intrinsic merit.

The north pedestrian gate. This is in a row of wooden terraced houses opening to the courtyard
The complex is intended to foster community. As everyone must
passthrough the village green to get to their homes, people are
encouraged to interact. Being open, away from traffic and well
overlooked by 42 dwellings, the green is a safe place for children to
play during the day, and for people to cross at night. The three
entrances would have gates with card access, closed after dark. The
community garden is a space for further interaction, and the barbecue
pavilion is another community focus. Children and a large lawn always
results in impromptu games.
With the parking out of sight underground, the complex would
not disadvantage cyclists and pedestrians, and in any case the site is
an easy walk into town. Bicycle sheds opening onto the green are
provided in the base of the apartment building, backing onto the Madras
street shops. Shared parking is another opportunity for people to
interact and being undercover prevents vehicles from deteriorating. The
dwellings consist of 30 semi-detached houses of 80 to 200 square metres
and varying specifications, and an apartment building with 21 flats
varying from 44 square metre studios to 140 square metre three-bedroom
apartments. The houses have small private gardens, though the apartment
dwellers must share the green. Four of the houses come with a shop
underneath fronting onto Madras Street. The shops under the apartment
building are accessed only off Madras Street, though they may well be
owned or leased by village residents. The octagonal restaurant is also
accessed only off Madras Street, and as much as anything serves to give
back to the wider community, working as the pivot and visual focus of a
major landmark (the Gloucester and Madras Street fronts of the
complex), providing a focus for this part of the city.

The corner facing Madras and Armagh Streets. The corner building is four townhouses with shops
This particular site has long marked a boundary, with the
central city to the west of it and inner-city housing to the east. The
Charlie B's backpackers building marked the transition, an overtly
commercial building on the residential side of the street, facing the
taller office buildings on the other side. Behind it was a mixture of
old houses and apartment complexes, a dense inner suburbia. Now the
site faces the frame, soon to be a wide belt of parkland. The Madras
Street front of the complex therefore needs to be able to comfortably
face a park or a commercial street, it also needs to help define an
important public green space, hence the restaurant and south block of
the complex serving as a dignified, ageless and friendly backdrop to
Latimer Square.

The corner facing Madras and Gloucester Streets. The octagonal corner building is a restaurant
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