The master plan includes three interconnected buildings situated within an existing heritage precinct, which includes Pearson House and the Jubilee Building, both dating to the early 1900s and built under the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind.

Following seismic upgrades and refurbishment, Pearson House will become part of the Generus development, housing a residents’ café, a cinema, and dining and wellness spaces.

Stage 1, pictured above, contains 46 apartments, most of which have two or three bedrooms; each one includes a separate scullery, study and laundry.

Peddlethorp’s Associate Director, Pierre van Tonder, says the building design references the Jubilee Building’s recessed terraces and vertically proportioned bay windows contained within double-height stone reveals. “It’s sympathetic to the Gothic Revival building’s scale through the setback of the upper two levels and it references the pitched roof through the upper level’s bronze anodised vertical cladding.”

The main façade of the new building is an open jointed limestone rainscreen, with stone fluting to the base as a nod to the nearby War Memorial building’s fluted entry columns.

Van Tonder says the building has a best-practice thermal envelope with external insulation throughout, including a warm roof. It also has thermally broken cavity battens to the bronze anodised cladding and thermally broken windows with low E glazing.

“The main structure consists of pre-cast exterior walls and post-tensioned floor slabs, including the roof construction, which enabled the contractor to jumpform the last level to include the roof, thereby enclosing the building sooner and simplifying the fire rating process compared to conventional passive firedetailing around roof members,” explains Tonder. “This avoids internal beams, allowing unimpeded services reticulation and maximising the ceiling height.”

Stage 2 of the project will commence late 2023/early 2024.

For more info and updates go to peddlethorp.co.nz.