Te Ō

Project Type: Social Housing & Multi-unit Residential.
Client: Kāinga Ora
Location: Mt Cook, Wellington
Status: Completed 2024

This community rejuvenation project brings 80 new dwellings in a mix of apartments and townhouses along with support facilities to the city fringe suburb of Mt Cook in Wellington.

A carefully considered design response brings a modern community to an established character hillside suburb. Careful workings with the topography recognised the opportunity to integrate a 5-storey apartment building inclusive of community space and a unique model of supported housing services within a surrounding edge response of 3-storey townhouse style buildings.

This significant Kāinga Ora project replaced three no longer fit-for-purpose 1940’s apartment blocks that was notoriously known for anti-social impacts on the neighbourhood. A design challenge was to uplift the yield from 50 apartments to 80 in a manner that would provide a new canvas for supported housing for people in need whilst integrating both the people and the buildings into the community.

The built response needed to set the platform for the support services that are being provided by Wellington City Mission with their 24/7 on site presence. Te O is a single site supported housing (SSSH) community and is the first and only of its kind in Wellington. To quote Wellington City Mission:

“SSSH is a place that people can call home, in a community that supports and values everyone who lives and works at Te O. WCM will walk alongside kainoho to make sure support and care are in place so that a successful community is built.”

The success of the project has been recognised by Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZ Institute of Architects in 2025 with a Wellington region Award for Housing – Multi Unit.