The wedge-shaped plan form of the building at Nos. 2 – 14 Riddiford Street is a direct consequence of it being designed to fill the available site between the street boundaries of Riddiford Street and Adelaide Road, with a blunt “nose” about 2 metres wide presented square to the intersection. The original drawing shows six shops (one double the size of the others) on the ground floor facing Riddiford Street. The deeper shops away from the intersection had rooms behind them, while all shops had stairs to the residential accommodation at the first floor with a mixture of facilities that included kitchens, bathrooms, dining rooms and bedrooms. Two of the units were too small to include kitchens and bedrooms, and the room above the shops were noted as ‘workrooms’.
The building as it exists today is divided into seven bays along its length with projecting double brick party walls, with each bay containing a shop-front to Riddiford Street, and, above the verandah, a pair of double-hung timber windows to the accommodation beyond. Six of the shops are equal in size, with the shop in the “nose” of the building longer than the others. A mono-pitched corrugated iron roof runs between each of the party walls (and slopes towards Adelaide Road). The building is clad in rusticated weatherboards and trimmed with double hung timber sash windows; the lean-to verandah has a corrugated iron roof on timber framing, supported with modern steel posts.
At the top of the building a heavy cornice surmounted by a low timber parapet provides a horizontal reference line to visually tie the building together, assisted by the strong horizontal line of the verandah. The parapet conceals the roof beyond and gives the building a very angular appearance in keeping with the nature of its site.
Along the return to Adelaide Road, the building line follows the site boundary for the first three bays of the building with an impassive weather-boarded façade which continues the parapet line around the corner – this wall contains a single doorway and a few windows at high level to service the flat associated with the front shop.
Beyond the corner of this façade, the building line is set back from the timber fence at the street line. The area of the site is retained below the level of Adelaide Road so the building maintains two full stories along its length. The brick party walls between the tenancies are off-square with Adelaide Road and this arrangement helps create an interesting staggered arrangement to the building face line. The staggering effectively keeps the residential tenancies to much the same plan areas and which, by opportune orientation, also creates some privacy between the flats. The chimneys from each flat, set against the party walls, add an interesting rhythm to the silhouette of the building. At the lower level, the areas are largely paved, although there is a garden area running along the street line which has plantings including young pohutukawa. At the upper levels, each flat has a small timber balcony with a stair which lets down to street level.
For a commercial building in such a prominent location it has retained a surprisingly high level of authenticity. The general plan layout of the shops and accommodation appears largely intact, as is the verandah along the Riddiford Street side, although the original cast-iron verandah posts are missing and is now supported on modern steel posts. There is an interesting variety of shop-fronts below the verandah, all old, some original and others with substantial amounts of original fabric, all serving to enliven the main street façade and to emphasise the long commercial history and continuity of use of the building. Above the verandah, rusticated weatherboarding, projecting cornice, parapet and square-headed double-hung windows exist in the form they show on the original drawings.
