In essence

Royal Oak Project

The Royal Oak Project in its finished glory has struck just the right chord, combining an appreciation of Arrowtown's history with the innovation of modern day architecture.

The largest site on the sunny side of Arrowtown's protected historic Buckingham Street has seen a succession of hotels come and go since the first one built in the 1860s. The last in the chain, the Royal Oak Hotel built in the 1920s was weathered and battered finally resulting in demolition to make way for the new Royal Oak Project.

Close to the heart of the community, a long design and consent stage followed, including applying for a second consent after the first was approved due to a change in design plans. The original approved design was discarded in favour of a more sympathetic realisation as to context and place, reflecting the desire of the community that the Arrowtown Town Centre should be developed in such a way that new buildings remain sympathetic to the historic nature of the town, but do not seek to replicate earlier eras.

Focusing on the architectural essence of Arrowtown and the elements of building scale, mass and form, the character of the new building was vested in being small, of human, pedestrian proportion and relevance; being substantially constructed of masonry and of solid shape or form; and being a conglomerate of visually formal techniques and relationships of façade and roof gable expression.

Over 2000 square metres of leaseable floor area is now enclosed in the Royal Oak Project in Arrowtown providing flexible and varied retail and commercial tenancy spaces distributed around a central open sunny courtyard area. Retailers are clustered on the ground floor with easy pedestrian access while the commercial and professional service providers call the first floor home.

The finished project has a five unit appearance, with parapets and an apparent size and proportion in context with the Goldfields era. The complicated roof design helps to provide a look in keeping with the era rather than using one large building structure.

Walls were built with natural, locally sourced, stacked schist stone complemented by traditional plaster render and Linea weatherboard cladding using traditional profiles and painted in approved heritage colours, using a cream, brown, red and grey colour palette in hues of Resene Pearl Lusta (classic cream), Resene Eighth Mondo (softly greyed brown), Resene Mondo (grey green neutral), Resene Double Arrowtown (earthy neutral), Resene Pavlova (green edged cream) and Resene Pioneer Red (colonial red oxide).

Building in a heritage area brings with it unusual challenges with colours and materials needing to be checked and passed by the Civic Corp and the Arrowtown advisory board. Their strict requirements saw Resene Vixen replaced with Resene Pioneer Red and standard BNZ corporate colours being changed on an external access ATM machine.

The Royal Oak Project in its finished glory has struck just the right chord, combining an appreciation of Arrowtown's history with the innovation of modern day architecture.

Architect: John Blair Architects
Construction: Rilean Construction Ltd
Owner: Arthur Anderson and Marie & David Speight
Painting Contractor: Phil Rodgers, Premier Coatings
Project Manager: Peak Projects International Ltd
Resene: Annette Gin, Queenstown Branch Manager
From the Resene News – issue 1/2007

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