Kokihi in Waterview — Ockham’s lucky 13th development — was opened in June last year.
With seven more developments under construction, Ockham’s co-founder and captain, Mark Todd, reflects on the company’s first decade-and-a-bit. The day had dawned with a sort of Scott Base vibe. Breath exhaled in slow, floating clouds, hands were kept firmly in pocket.
The official K.kihi opening ceremony starring Housing Minister Megan Woods had been slated to take place alongside the building’s swimming pool before an untimely winter tempest forced guests underground to the Building B carpark. Downstairs to the bunker!
Behold, the magnificence of Ockham’s basement architecture!
Not that anyone noticed or seemed to mind. As Minister Woods cut the ribbon, she hailed Kokihi as “exemplary… a beautiful housing development, delivered ahead of schedule… constructing 95 high-quality apartments on land where seven homes once stood.
“And that is a number I think we need to stop and consider. The fact that we have taken seven homes and created 95 new places where dreams can be fulfilled, and children can grow up, and people can make their lives.”
A long-term outlook
For Ockham’s Mark Todd, the completion of the company’s second project with Marutuahu Iwi was poignant.
“I felt a huge sense of pride at what we had achieved. It’s three years’ work getting a project like K.kihi across the finish line and it’s a great asset for Auckland. It sets a new standard in many ways.
“Too many large-scale projects are just financial instruments that end up making a bunch of money and no one cares about the legacy of the building. It’s extremely gratifying to build a great place that people are proud to live in, which won’t cost a lot to maintain.”
Marutuahu Iwi chair, Paul Majurey, was equally satisfied. He describes the whanaungatanga relationship between Marutuahu and Ockham as “a very special partnership that comes out of people sharing world views and aspirations — a long-term outlook.
“An emphasis on quality communities and homes and not on money — and also some very long-term aspirations around the built environment and leaving a legacy for Tamaki Makaurau.”
“Too many large-scale projects are just financial instruments that end up making a bunch of money and no one cares about the legacy of the building. It’s extremely gratifying to build a great place that people are proud to live in.” — Ockham’s Mark Todd
Building a legacy
Todd and Ockham co-founder Benjamin Preston, who started Ockham during the global financial crisis in 2008, always intended to leave a legacy — by creating attractive, long-lasting, liveable buildings, and by starting Ockham Collective, which offers creative people free use of beautiful spaces in which to teach, run workshops, perform, think and write.
The pair’s first project was the original Ockham building opposite Eden Park. “Auckland’s landscape is world-class, but the apartment sector was decidedly average before 2008,” Todd says. “We went into this with an ambition to build things better, to set a new standard and to be copied.”
The Ockham Building did exactly that. It was included in Auckland City’s design manual as an exemplar to be imitated, as was Ockham’s fourth apartment building, The Isaac. Centred around a private lane, the three buildings of The Isaac each incorporated a large, fully-landscaped rooftop lounge — luxurious community spaces which became one of Ockham’s signature moves.
Many of Ockham’s other projects have attracted attention — Daisy, which remains New Zealand’s only apartment building to achieve a 10 Homestar rating, hit headlines because it didn’t include carparks (and Mike Hosking didn’t like its name). Station R, a sleek development designed to pick up on the aesthetic of the adjacent train tracks on Fenton Street in Mt Eden, was shortlisted in the 2018 Home Awards. With its prominent curves and eye-catching dark-glazed bricks, Modal House in Mt Albert picked up an honourable mention in the 2021 Here magazine awards.
“I’m proud of all of our buildings,” Todd says. “We’ve built a company of substance. It was never a goal of mine, it just happened because we always acted with intent. It's a bit like multi-variable calculus — to get the right solution you can have win-win-win deals. You have great housing, make money, house the people, and help make Auckland better. You can change the sector.”
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