2015 New Zealand Architecture Awards finalists

Forty-six buildings, ranging from house alterations to a police station and from traffic interchanges to an art gallery, have been shortlisted in the awards programme that decides New Zealand’s top buildings.

The finalists in the New Zealand Architecture Awards are located around the country, from Rawhiti in the Bay of Islands to Wanaka in Central Otago. They include new landmark buildings such as MIT Manukau & Transport Interchange and Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery in Auckland, the Treasury Research Centre and Archive in Thames, and the Isaac Theatre Royal and the Botanic Garden Visitors Centre in Christchurch.

Other projects in the running for New Zealand Architecture Awards include two new buildings at Iona College in Havelock North, a café in Napier, a cancer treatment facility in Tauranga, the Clyde Quay Wharf Apartments in Wellington, and a “concept store” in Shanghai.

“The range and quality of the projects on the shortlist is impressive and inspiring,” says the Awards jury convenor, Auckland architect Pete Bossley.

“It was tough enough deciding what to leave off the shortlist, and it won’t be easy choosing the buildings that will get a New Zealand Architecture Award.”

Bossley says that, as usual, housing projects feature strongly in the Architecture Awards programme. Nineteen of the shortlisted buildings are residential, 11 of them new houses and four of them alterations or additions.

Four multi-unit residential developments are also on the shortlist – a welcome sign, Bossley says, that this type of much-needed building is getting design attention.

Educational work also has a strong presence on the Awards shortlist. Buildings at the University of Auckland, Manukau Institute of Technology, Avondale College and Saint Kentigern College, Auckland, Wintec in Hamilton and Iona College are finalists in the Awards education category.

Another educational project, Deanwell School in Hamilton, is a contender for an Enduring Architecture Award, a category that acknowledges buildings that have given excellent service for at least 25 years. Other buildings shortlisted in this category are the Gibbs House in Auckland and Buck House, a celebrated home in Havelock North designed by the late Sir Ian Athfield.

Heritage projects on the Awards shortlist include Lopdell House in Titirangi, Auckland, the Treasury Research Centre and Archive in Thames, the Stout Street Building in Wellington and the Isaac Theatre Royal in Christchurch.

Six buildings in the public architecture category are Awards finalists. Two of the buildings are in Auckland – Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery in Titirangi, and Panmure Interchange. Other finalists in this category are the Kathleen Kilgour Centre, a radiotherapy unit in Tauranga; Rotorua Police Station; the Blyth Performing Arts Centre at Iona College; and Christchurch Botanic Gardens Visitor Centre.

Finalists in the Awards commercial category are the Allendale Annexe, which is an addition to the historic Allendale House in Ponsonby, Auckland, and the Stranges and Glendenning Hill Building Replacement in Christchurch.

In the Hospitality and Retail category the Mackelvie Street Shopping Precinct in Auckland and Monica Loves café in Napier have made the shortlist, while the finalists in the Small Project category are Te Kaitaka – ‘The Cloak’ at Auckland Airport, a studio at Lyttelton, and a public toilet at Brooklands Lagoon in Christchurch.

A finalist in the international category – the New Zealand China Concept Store in Shanghai designed for the Oravida company – completes the Awards shortlist.

Pete Bossley’s jury, which includes Nelson architect Jeremy Smith, Wellington architect Sharon Jansen, and Queensland architect Damien Eckersley, will visit the shortlisted projects in August.

The 2015 New Zealand Architecture Awards will be announced at a function at Te Papa, Wellington, on 30 October.

At that event, for the first time, New Zealand Architecture Award-winning buildings in the categories of housing, commercial and public architecture will be considered for Signature Awards named for three influential New Zealand architects – Sir Miles Warren, the late John Scott and and Sir Ian Athfield.

The overall winner in the Architecture Awards receives the New Zealand Architecture Medal.

nzia.co.nz