The Aucklander apartments

The more pedestrian friendly space in front of the central library will have all new gunmetal grey paving, artworks, seating and lighting to enhance a multi-level streetscape. With the City Art Gallery and the New Gallery adjacent, saluting this with colour seemed appropriate.

The Aucklander, a 15 storey building with 68 apartments, has just been repainted at the age of 12 years, and aims to contribute to this mélange with its new strata of brilliant colour. Against the calcium gleam of Resene Seashell, fourteen sharp brights ascend from fresh green Resene Citrus to the solar brilliance of Resene Turbo. Metaphorically, grass at our feet and the sun high overhead.

These bright colours are anchored by cantilevered balconies given architectural emphasis and weight in gunmetal Resene Scarpa Flow. Blue-black Resene Bastille grounds the street-level façade, and gives silhouette to the vertical ballustrading above. The fire escape on the west side is painted out visually as much as possible in Resene Seashell.

When the designer presented the colour proposal to the Body Corporate Committee, there were raised eyebrows followed by focused interest. To treat a building as a background, a take on an abstract modernist artwork was not an approach they had considered, but quickly warmed to. And the boldness of the colour has brought smiles and comments from the occupants, although the inside face of the bright panels is painted in Resene Seashell to maximise light reflectance into the interiors, and to not impose the exterior colour scheme on the individual interiors.