Thinking Outside Of The Square

Every design project has it’s own set of problems
and peremetres. On the Kate Sheppard Retirement Village, architect, Tim Goodwin found a unique and economical solution which met the client brief and the Town Planning requirements.

Kate Sheppard Retirement Village

Kate Sheppard Retirement Village is a comprehensive development for the elderly comprising rest home and  hospital care facilities, serviced apartments, studio units and independent cottages together with support and administrative facilities.  As part of the ongoing development of the village a new stand alone facility was required within the existing village to accommodate approximately 100 residents, with 40 rest home beds and the balance in hospital accommodation.

The brief required the new facilities needed to be contained in a single building with central administration, kitchen and laundry areas with separate rest home and hospital facilities related to the central core.  Residents rooms were to be generously sized with full ensuites to each room.

The site  boarders a significant natural wetland which has been recently upgraded by Christchurch City Council to provide an attractive local amenity with natural waterways, ponds, walkways and rest areas.  There are expansive views to the north and west beyond the wetland.

To take advantage of the outlook the building was developed with a single storey rest home to the west and a two storey hospital to the east with the central core facilities in between.

Due to the scale of the building and generous bedroom and ensuite accommodation the various wings of the building were required to be over 13.40m wide.  This created a number of challenges with the design of the building, particularly the roof.  Town planning requirements placed restrictions on the maximum height permitted and also required the scale of the building to be residential in nature.  These restrictions meant we could not build a conventional pitched roof system so a bit of lateral thinking was required.

The obvious answer was to pitch the roof up from either side of building and incorporate a flat portion of roof in the centre. Traditionally these flat roof areas would be covered with membrane roofing systems over plywood but with the amount of flat roof required (over 6.0m wide) the cost of this system would be prohibitive.

Our solution was to construct the whole of the roof in longrun trapezoidal Colorsteel® roofing by pitching the roof at 25 degrees from either side, crimp curving the roofing sheets at the change in pitch and finishing with 4 degree low pitch roofing to the ridge line. This enabled the roof to be constructed using standard nailplate trusses, timber purlins, and continuous longrun roofing.