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Winners announced: 2021 New Zealand Architecture Awards, ArchitectureNow, 2 December 2021
Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) has announced the winners of this year’s New Zealand Architecture Awards.
The New Zealand Architecture Awards jury, led by Wellington architect Sharon Jansen and including fellow architects John Hardwick-Smith, Gary Lawson and Grant Edwards, gathered on a snowy Queenstown day in early August to begin making their way around Aotearoa. The plan was to visit 52 projects across 15 towns and cities. Luckily, they had already completed 10 days of their tour when the emergence of the Covid-19 Delta variant in the community plunged the entire country into lockdown. The five remaining site visits, in Auckland, were made ‘virtually’ in late October. The final four awards, or named awards, will be announced on Thursday 9 December.
Convenor Sharon Jansen said: “This year, we saw many excellent entries in the Housing – Multi-Unit category, which is significant as our property market changes and adapts to new residential living models. In this time of urgent need for housing across the spectrum of our society, we found ourselves needing to break our own rules by adding a fourth winner to this category, where two vying for a place were inseparable.”
She also remarked: “In the Housing category, we look to celebrate what it is that makes a good home, regardless of budget or size. With these winners, we recognise that excellent design in housing is not only about a beautiful photograph, but also about space, thermal performance, functionality and connections to place.”
HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE AWARDS:
Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira – Te Ao Mārama and Cenotaph Galleries by Jasmax, FJMT, DesignTRIBE and Salmond Reed
Judges said: “This exemplary project threads a series of bold new architectural elements and integrated artworks through the existing layers of Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, transforming it into a cohesive entity fit for its multicultural future. A new entry sequence from the south creates an epic civic greeting and orientation space within the South Atrium. New spaces and linkages have been elegantly designed to connect rooms and navigate between existing layers of heritage fabric. Rich materiality, local timbers, sculpted forms and diverse narratives reinforce cultural connections, and strongly ground the building in its unique place.”
HOSPITALITY ARCHITECTURE AWARD:
Tuitui by Jack McKinney Architects
Judges said: “Sometimes simple is best, as is the case with this perfectly executed insertion into Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum. With details that are both sweet and robust, and a back-of-house space creatively shoehorned around a heritage structure, the front-of-house area has been maximised in a manner that is contemporary, chic and intriguing. As a centrepiece of this bistro and café, a long, curved, green marble counter is at once a spatial organiser, social prompt and service zone. With his use of sculpted concave forms that brilliantly echo the fluted columns of their neoclassical museum backdrop, the architect has skilfully deployed heft, colour, texture and form – with subtle nods to 1950s’ diners – to create a wonderful environment in which to dine.”
PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE AWARDS:
Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira – Te Ao Mārama and Cenotaph Galleries by Jasmax, FJMT, DesignTRIBE and Salmond Reed
Judges said: “Through diverse and responsive stakeholder engagement, and respectful intervention with heritage, this collaborative team has created critical new connections and facilitated improved accessibility to Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum. A new entry sequence welcomes visitors through carved fins into Te Ao Mārama, the South Atrium, and new pathways navigate visitors through the building. Rich materiality, local timbers and sculpted forms with diverse narratives connect old with new, reinforcing cultural connections, and strongly grounding the building in its unique place.”
COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTURE AWARDS:
Commercial Bay by Warren and Mahoney, Woods Bagot and NH Architecture in association
Judges said: ”Design excellence is revealed in this ambitious project, which creates a transformational destination in downtown Auckland. From the generous and luxurious Sky Lobby to the Green- Star-rated tower and the re-imagining of an entire city block, Commercial Bay achieves a remarkable level of sophistication and design richness. Providing connections to multiple transport networks, and negotiating the challenge of accommodating tunnels for the under-construction City Rail Link, this project of epic proportions is testament to the excellence of its design team and is a precinct for Tāmaki Makaurau that is truly worth celebrating.”
The Hotel Britomart by Cheshire Architects
Judges said: “A successful new addition to the cityscape of Tāmaki Makaurau, the Hotel Britomart interfaces gracefully with adjacent heritage architecture, creating intricate spatial experiences for those who move through this building and the laneway it creates. Beautifully planned and executed, the hotel is a place of discovery and delight – from the architects’ reinvention of the hotel room into something clever and unusual yet luxurious, to the seamless integration of its thoughtful exterior with a rich and sumptuous materiality within. This is New Zealand’s first 5 Green Star rated hotel; the commitment and passion of client, contractor and architects to design excellence and sustainability through concept, execution and delivery has resulted in an outstanding building for Tāmaki Makaurau.”
SCION Innovation Hub Te Whare Nui o Tuteata by RTA Studio and Irving Smith Architects
Judges said: ”In creating this striking new public interface and showcase for timber technology, the architects have successfully embraced their client’s desire to maximise the use of wood, resulting in benchmark-setting innovation. Formed as a patterned glass box façade that references the adjacent Whakarewarewa Forest canopy, and layered over an articulated timber framework to deliver dappled light into the interior, the generous open core of this Crown research building shapes an interconnected structure with a welcoming heart. Extensive use of sustainably grown, local timber has enabled the building to achieve net-zero embodied carbon emissions, creating a blueprint for the future of timber construction.”
ENDURING ARCHITECTURE AWARD:
Christchurch Town Hall (1972) by Warren and Mahoney
Judges said: “How could architects so young design with such vision? This project is testament to the very rare skills of Sir Miles Warren and Maurice Mahoney (both 35 at the time), and acoustician Sir Harold Marshall (33), and the ways in which they combined their abilities to create a masterpiece of national and international significance. Rugged, robust, refined and delicate, this architecture is one of contrast and contradiction that harmonises into a jaw-dropping effect. From carpet colours to door handles, and from lampshades to acoustic baffles, nothing was left to accident and nothing could be better. The Christchurch Town Hall has truly endured, and risen again to take its rightful place in the canon of New Zealand architecture.”