The Orange | Auckland

Wraight + Associates Ltd collaborated with the architects, consultant team, contractor and specialist fabricators to deliver The Orange apartment’s landscapes.

The Orange landscape mediates between the historic Orange Hall and the new Orange Apartments. The main landscape space is a basalt-paved courtyard, which cascades down two stairs to connect it to street level. A feature tree planter provides a sculptural focus within the courtyard that draws on the building’s form, bold colour and has an infusion of the past: the pleated form of the dresses that were the fashion in the Hall’s heyday. Other subtle courtyard details recall the past uses of the Hall, which once extended across the courtyard space. The bespoke ‘school chairs’ clustered at the courtyard edges allude to the past school dance – one could linger at the side or step into the action – while sand-blasted footprints occasionally traverse the paving, and depict formal dance steps.

New raised planters to the front of the Orange hall reference the pleated language of the feature planter, and new apartments. The planters offer a seating edge and green condition that helps re-engage the refurbished Hall with street life and the city. New in-ground planters along Dundonald Street provide a striking green buffer where the new Orange Hall nearly touches the ground.

The landscape design is robust and calm but infused with fun and focal moments. It draws on elements from the old and the new; splicing the hall’s history with the new building’s bold colour and form.