Urban Haven Apartments
/2023
Stacked light-gauge steel pods, prefabricated balconies, and rooftop food gardens re-energise a once-derelict downtown parcel. The porous ground-floor arcade stitches retail kiosks into the streetscape, while communal lounges every third level nurture chance encounters and reinforce the project’s mixed-income, transit-oriented social agenda.
Project Gallery

Timescales
From initial feasibility to first tenant move-ins, the 180-unit complex was delivered in just 22 months under a tightly coordinated public–private partnership.
Off-site fabrication of the steel modules ran concurrently with site remediation; stacking all 72 pods took only 72 days and achieved full weather-tightness before winter.
A phased hand-over strategy opened the ground-floor retail podium three months early, generating revenue and activating the streetscape while upper floors were still finishing.
Objectives
Provide 180 mixed-income housing units within five minutes’ walk of transit and animate the sidewalk edge with rentable pop-up kiosks.
Reclaim over 55% of the block for public realm through a mid-block green alley and secure a BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’.
Employ adaptable floorplates and insert double-height communal lounges every third level to foster spontaneous resident interaction and community cohesion.
Materials
Precision-manufactured light-gauge steel pods were framed in the factory to tight tolerances, and clip-on balconies of perforated aluminium grating allow daylight to reach lower units.
Rhythmic brick-slip façade panels were fabricated just 10 kilometres away, while interior acoustic partitions are densely packed with post-consumer cellulose insulation.
Extensive rooftop gardens rest on engineered lightweight soil and recycled-glass drainage layers, and PV glass canopies supply roughly 11% of communal electricity demand.
Challenges
Legacy industrial soil contamination mandated full vapour barriers and sparked community outreach to address health concerns around the site.
Global steel-coil shortages were mitigated by bulk pre-orders and strategic storage at the fabricator, ensuring uninterrupted module production.
Tight downtown truck routes forced most heavy deliveries to occur at night, coordinated around the city’s event calendar to avoid congestion.