There’s something faintly revolutionary about building social housing that looks, feels and functions like somewhere you might actually want to live. In Ōtautahi Christchurch, Andrew Barrie Lab has found an unlikely way to do just that: a modern-day monastery.

When the grand, century-old Oxford Terrace Baptist Church came down in the 2011 earthquakes, its congregation faced a choice: rebuild or regroup. In characteristically benevolent fashion, they chose the latter, reframing the loss as an opportunity to do more with its land and for its community. “We wanted to build places where people could live, work, worship and learn,” says church treasurer Bradley Nicolson. “But we had no idea what that looked like, so we launched a design competition.” Andrew Barrie Lab responded with an unconventional and ambitious approach.

What that monastic-inspired architecture looks like is a loose ring of buildings wrapped around a shared garden and stitched together by a cloister. Church, social services, offices, a cafe and apartments face inwards, connected by covered walkways that encourage – but don’t force – interaction. “It’s a bit like the old monasteries, where the cloisters connect the chapels, learning and living,” explains Barrie. “But there were no examples of anything like this in New Zealand, so we really didn’t know if it would work.”

Spoiler alert: it does.

The development is an exercise in doing a lot with very little. Built with standard materials and modest proportions, construction averaged around $3000 per square metre, proving affordability and architectural ambition can co-exist. The budget was tight, but Barrie used it as a provocation to discover where each dollar could work hardest. “The financial stuff was actually tougher than the architecture, with a lot of white-knuckle moments,” he admits.

Funding had to be patched together, so the build was staggered. Stage One, of which the insurance payout covered about two-thirds, delivered the church, offices, hall and cafe, with commercial space rented to external tenants to help pay down debt. Stage Two, funded by more borrowing, replaced the church’s carpark with more rented social-service agency offices and two accommodation wings, encompassing 11 homes, ranging from single-level, two-bedroom apartments (one of which is wheelchair-friendly) to five-bedroom, three-floor family units. Residents span ages, stages and ethnicities, and include families, students, former refugees and those who qualify for social housing.

Materials are simple and left raw where possible. Any exceptions are born of necessity. One accommodation wing, for example, houses apartments and offices, demanding complex construction to balance open floor spans and fire separation. Taking cues from commercial architecture, its exterior walls sandwich insulation and battens, building wrap, and standard cavity battens between concrete-block and metal cladding. Inside, the complexity disappears. Exposed concrete-block walls give the apartments a fittingly monastic character – and an unexpected link to Christchurch’s mid-century architectural history.

Ingenuity is evident in the details. Where a more expensive project might have bought its way out of problems, Barrie has designed his way around them. The acoustician, for instance, initially demanded the aforementioned wing have plasterboard ceilings to meet sound-separation requirements between apartments. Instead, Barrie left the concrete ceiling beams exposed and slipped the soundproofing into the suspended floor above. This not only met the requirements, it also bought back 200mm of ceiling height. “It’s very simple, straightforward,” he says of the added volume, “but it gives it a bit of architecture.”

Those moments of considered architecture abound. There are solid floor-to-ceiling doors, long sightlines through the plan, terraces, timber window reveals and, in one office, a window seat. Windows feature both sheer and blackout curtains, focusing views towards the cloister and gardens. Pipes and electrical services disappear neatly behind built-in joinery. Apartments are insulated to double the minimum standard and supplied with whiteware, tables, chairs, built-in living-room seating and solar-generated power. “So before you even move in you’ve got somewhere to sit, somewhere to eat,” says Barrie.

The apartments feel considered. Quality doesn’t depend on a tenant’s budget, taste or ability to furnish; instead, the architecture does much of the heavy lifting. For those residents who have come from emergency accommodation, refugee camps or motels, these decisions carry weight. A good home is more than four walls and a roof; it’s also stability, security and a bit of dignity.

For Barrie, the success of it all hinged on the tenants coming out from behind their doors. “Kiwis are quite private people, so we had to break through that. The idea we hit on was the feeling of being in a campground – that moment when you’ve got your towel rolled up under one arm, heading off to the shower, and you stop to have a chat or make a plan to swing by for a G&T later. That moment where all the boundaries become very permeable.”

The cloister is the key to that casual connection. It’s a thoroughfare, a kids’ bike track, a play area, a sunny spot for potted herbs. Kitchen windows open onto it, with bar leaners and stools propped outside for anyone who wants to perch up for a chat. In the gardens beyond there are shared meals, community events and vegetable plots that were handed to residents as a weekend project rather than a finished amenity. Equally important, the backs of the apartments are deliberately private, with terraces, balconies and gardens for retreat.

Financially, the scheme leaned on a couple of built-in exit ramps. Some of the church’s offices have been rented out to generate income, while an adjacent carpark was purchased early and retained as a potential fallback asset. It wasn’t needed: a recent refinance cut borrowing costs by $150,000, clearing the way for another accommodation wing that will replace an old building and complete the ring around the garden. When it’s finished, the cloisters will close the loop, strengthening the idea of sanctuary.

Before the earthquakes, Oxford Terrace Baptist Church hosted roughly 200 worshippers on a Sunday, then sat largely empty for the rest of the week. Now, up to 400 people roll through the development on any given weekday. When the project was photographed, the doors to the church were pushed back as a bride and groom said their vows, children careened around the cloisters, tenants grilled, others gardened. It was busy, messy and alive. The architecture has transformed a single-purpose institution into its own wee urban ecosystem. It didn’t take an overblown budget to realise this project, but it did take an ambitious client, a wild idea and a heck of a lot of bravery. Hopefully the kind of bravery that inspires others to follow suit.

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