The site location — over a filled gully with high groundwater levels — influenced plant selection and overall design. The central courtyard allows for an overland flowpath through the site should an extreme rain event overwhelm the stormwater infrastructure.

A nine-metre fall across the site presented challenges when integrating the buildings at different levels and providing accessible ramped access to the residential blocks. The structural design of the residential blocks resulted in a high building foundation that could not have ground loadings from gardens or paving. A range of landscape strategies were used to meet this restriction while ensuring the units were integrated into the landscape.

Each unit has a private outdoor living space, either as a balcony or enclosed screen courtyard. The apartments are arranged along the road frontages with a communal courtyard in the centre of the site.

Prominent whakairo artist Ihaia Puketapu carved poupou from three Totara trees that were removed from the site before construction of the new apartments started. Mr Puketapu chose Rongomatane and Haumia-tiketike – the deities of cultivated and native vegetation – as the figures to be represented in the poupou because of the site’s historic use.

Te Māra is one of three former Arlington Apartment sites which together make up the Council’s largest social housing location. A partnership with central government resulted in the Wellington City Council leasing these units to Housing New Zealand (HNZ).