"There currently is a shortage and demand for well-designed, high quality living and working developments in Auckland City. The majority of modernistic, small open-planned apartments do not cater for the diversity and discordance of activities within family or multi-person households, who increasingly want to live close to work, transport, entertainment and amenities. This will become progressively prevalent with a raising population, and with it, the need to increase the density of our cities. A solution can be provided with a design methodology driven by selected principles of Classicist planning and spatial composition, within a contemporary aesthetic. Three inter-related principles have been chosen explicitly for their ability to shed new light into the way modern apartments are spatially designed and planned, including: 'volumetric spatial composition', 'hierarchy of spaces', and 'spatial and formal unity'. In the Classicist mindset, a building is constructed functionally by separate spatial volumes; their position determined by the relationships required to each other; through direct connection, hierarchy, and in such a way as to form unity and balance within the whole composition"--Leaf iv.