NZIA awards & Architecture Medal

Ironbank, by RTA Studio, is the 2010 winner of the New Zealand Architecture Medal, and the highly innovative building has quickly become established as an Auckland landmark. The stacked box towers of Ironbank – described by medal jurors as a “rich, groundbreaking and thrilling tour de force” – provide a striking foil to neighbouring historic buildings on Karangahape Road.

Richard Naish, design director of RTA Studio, says that both the historic street and the service lane running behind the site provided inspiration, with the design addressing a transition between the two street conditions. “The front of the site addresses the high street which is dominated by a rich mixture of Victorian and Edwardian buildings. Most of these buildings have fallen into varying states of disrepair over recent decades,” Mr Naish says. “The back street is primarily a service lane, and has remained largely undeveloped and unplanned through its evolution. Its streetscape is therefore architecturally unconsidered and haphazard in its appearance.”

Mr Naish explains that the building was conceived as a “manifestation of a crosscontamination of the two contrasting street conditions, the high street being concerned with notions of presentation, display, etiquette and heritage, while the service lane is concerned with servicing, delivery, disorder and utility.”

He adds that the glassreinforced concrete (GRC) facade was designed as an abstraction of the historic facades. “In a gesture to the finely scaled historical neighbourhood, we have sought to fragment the building form to alleviate the potential mass associated with a medium-sized office building. Hence, five towers are further fragmented vertically to articulate the composition of stacked office and retail spaces gathered into a socially sustainable working community.”

 

About the NZ Architecture Medal

Ironbank, which was developed and is owned by the Samson Corporation, defeated 14 of the country’s top new designs to take the New Zealand Architecture Medal. The medal is presented by the NZIA. Only one medal is awarded each year.

The project, the first building to achieve a 5 Green Star As-Built rating from the New Zealand Green Building Council, was also a winner in the commercial and sustainable architecture categories of the New Zealand Architecture Awards.

Architect Gerald Parsonson, convenor of the awards jury, says that Ironbank represented a rare synthesis of originality, visual impact, functionality and ecological sensitivity. “Its towers of stacked boxes have a restless, sculptural quality, and the raw, muscular materials harmonise perfectly with the inner-city context,” Mr Parsonson says. “The various occupancies are each afforded a measure of insularity, yet the open circulation encourages a healthy level of interaction.”

Jurors hailed the strong sustainability ethos that had driven the project from conception. This included the recycling of 90% of existing buildings on the site. Features also include a cleverly conceived, space-saving car park with innovative car-stacking solutions.

The main consideration for the judges in assessing projects is how well a project resolves key design issues and then builds on this solution to “contribute to the advancement of architecture”.

New Zealand Architecture Award winners

Eighteen awards were made to 15 buildings nationally in the country’s premier competition for design and architecture. A maximum of three New Zealand Architecture Awards can be made in each of 10 categories.

The NZI Centre, by Jasmax, was a winner in the commercial, sustainable and interior architecture categories. Jurors praised it for setting new standards for office space and expectations of corporate citizens.

Mr Parsonson says the quality of winning entries had been very high. “The commercial winners were particularly strong architecturally while also displaying a genuine ecological sensitivity,” he says.

The Hillcrest Road Bridge, on the Northern Toll Road, also by Jasmax, was among the winners in urban design. It was described as a signature structure – “lyrical, elegant and memorable”. The Liardet Street Overpass in New Plymouth, by Boon Goldsmith Bhaskar Brebner Team Architecture, was also a winner in the category. Judges considered it a “fine example of what is possible when a local council decides to go down a design-driven route”.

The Beaumont Quarter project in Auckland won an urban design award for Studio Pacific Architecture and was praised as “a great result from a developer- driven project”. The Mana Tamariki Maori school in Palmerston North, by Tennent+Brown Architects, the University of Canterbury’s NZi3 Innovation Institute by Warren and Mahoney, and the Landscape Architecture Building at Lincoln University, by Sheppard & Rout Architects and Royal Associates in association, were winners in public architecture.

The Yellow Treehouse Restaurant by Pacific Environments Architects NZ – originally built for a Yellow Pages TV commercial – was a winner in small-project architecture. Wiroa Station Wine Cellar, designed by Modern Architecture Partners, and the O’Sullivan Home on Mangere Mountain, by Bull/ O’Sullivan Architecture, were also winners in the category.

Residential awards went to the Clements House in Christchurch and the Fox- Hansen House in Nelson by Athfield Architects and to Wanaka Lodge by Patterson Associates. An interior architecture award also went to a private office in Auckland’s Victoria Precinct, by Fearon Hay Architects.

For further information, visit www.nzia.co.nz