Architecture Jury Picks Nelson & Marlborough Winners

4 October 2012

Architecture Jury Picks Nelson & Marlborough Winners

Thirteen projects have been recognised in the annual architectural awards programme run by the regional branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects.

The 2012 Nelson/Marlborough Architecture Awards were announced on Thursday 4 October at an event in Stoke’s new Saxton Pavilion, itself one of the award-winning buildings.

The convenor of the Awards jury, Nelson architect Jeremy Smith, says the quality of entrants and winners was impressive, especially in light of continuing economic challenges.

“I was on the same jury seven years ago,” Smith says, “and standards now are appreciably higher.”

“The top of the South Island has become one of the hot spots in New Zealand architecture,” Smith says. “There have always been able architects in Nelson and Marlborough, but regional development, increased national and even international awareness of the district’s advantages, and a growing appreciation of the value of good design have increased the demand for quality architecture.”

The result, Smith says, is evident in this year’s Architecture Awards, which features work by both local and “out of town” architecture practices, and is characterised by particularly strong showings in the categories of commercial and residential architecture.

“Winery architecture has emerged as a significant specialisation in New Zealand,” Smith says. “And two of this year’s Award winners show why. They’re both very smart buildings for very savvy companies.”

The Awards judges said the Brancott Estate Heritage Centre designed by Fearon Hay Architects is “international in its ambition and quality”, and the Cloudy Bay Shack, designed by Paul Rolfe Architects and Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects is a “sculptural building” that “further anchors the Cloudy Bay brand”.

In the public realm, Smith says the sophistication of the area’s new architecture is exemplified in the Saxton Pavilion designed by Arthouse Architects, which the Awards jury praised for “challenging the design orthodoxy for public sports buildings”.

Smith says another award winner, also designed by Arthouse Architects, demonstrates that good architecture can make a real difference at grassroots level. The redevelopment of Nelson’s Victory School is “a model of community involvement”, Smith says, and, with its reuse of materials and existing buildings is an outstanding example of sustainable architecture.

Residential architecture is traditionally a strength of local, and national architecture, and Smith says this year’s crop of award-winning houses in Nelson and Marlborough is outstanding.

Two of the houses were designed by Tennent + Brown Architects – the Okiwa Bay House, which the jury said is “a brave and considered response to a dramatic and difficult site”, and the Waiwhero Farm House, a “wonderfully elegant contemporary home”.

Another Marlborough winner is Parsonson Architects’ Wairau Valley House, judged to be a “well-mannered and gracefully proportioned ranch house” which is “exquisitely planned and detailed”.

Six Nelson houses have received awards. The Carver House by Redbox Architects, which the jury said is a “warm and comfortable house” with a sensitive balance of “light, scale and intimacy”.

The jury said Arthouse Architect’s “House for Tree Lovers” exhibits “the craft of an architect totally familiar with the qualities of a unique environment”, Guy Herschell Architects’ Radman Brown House is a “well-considered and appropriately simple family home”, and Palmer & Palmer Architects’ Twenty-One House is “a beautifully composed and sequenced series of spaces.”

The jury gave two awards for enduring architecture. One was to the House at Melrose Terrace, Nelson, which was built in 1961 to a design by the celebrated émigré architect Ernst Plischke, and the other to the Britannia Heights House, built in 1960 and designed by Hal Wagstaff Architect.

Joining Jeremy Smith on the 2012 Nelson/Marlborough Architecture Awards jury were architects Meredith Robinson and John Melhuish, and Nelson artist Hillary Johnstone.

The New Zealand Architecture Awards is the official awards programme of the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) and its eight constituent branches. Entry is restricted to architects who are members of the NZIA. All winners of local Architecture Awards are eligible for consideration in annual New Zealand Architecture Awards, the winners of which will be announced in April 2013.

Commercial Architecture

Brancott Estate Heritage Centre, Blenheim
Fearon Hay Architects
Poetically sited and composed, this building is international in its ambition and quality, from its extensive overhanging roof, blanketed in stones, to its subtle planar shifts and interplay with the Wairau Valley landscape. A considered palette of concrete, glass, black steel, fabric and leather is expertly positioned, finished and weighted in the formation of a singular and highly tuned architecture.

Cloudy Bay Shack, Blenheim
Paul Rolfe Architects and Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects (Sydney) in association
This cleverly shaped form, which in turn conceals and reveals the Marlborough landscape, further anchors the Cloudy Bay brand. The pared back interiors elegantly showcase New Zealand-designed furniture, fittings and art. This sculptural building responds with confidence to a brief seeking a fine balance between celebration and humility.

Public Architecture

Saxton Pavilion, Stoke, Nelson
Arthouse Architects
Challenging the design orthodoxy for public sports buildings, this bold form lends distinctive character to a dual-use facility. Athletics and cricket are both well provided for in a high quality and well-scaled building featuring ample amenity, robustly detailed changing rooms, and a harmonious relationship with the surrounding landscape. The pavilion is a positive and muscular contribution to the genre of sports architecture.

Housing

Carver House, Nelson
Redbox Architects
In this house – the architect’s own family home – on a busy corner site, well positioned and connected private spaces cleverly weave into the public realm. The warm and comfortable house sensitively balances light, scale and intimacy; the architecture subtly provides a sense of consolidation as it accommodates a history of more than 20 years of family life.

House for Tree Lovers, Collingwood, Nelson
Arthouse Architects
This house has been beautifully conceived, well researched and carefully positioned within an ancient coastal Totara forest. The form is a pathway that has found a shape; the composition skips and meanders between the trees, ultimately connecting forest and sea. Simple, gentle, and appropriate to its site, the house exhibits the craft of an architect totally familiar with the qualities of a unique environment.

Okiwa Bay House, Anakiwa, Marlborough Sounds
Tennent + Brown Architects
This is a brave and considered response to a dramatic and difficult site. All the materials have been sensitively selected, intelligently detailed, and carefully finished; as a result the house settles comfortably into the steep, bush-clad hillside. Thoughtful planning has provided a variety of comfortable and crafted spaces that benefit from exhilarating views down Queen Charlotte Sound.

Radman Brown House, Richmond, Nelson
Guy Herschell Architects
This is a well-considered and appropriately simple family home. The design has been well resolved, sustainable practices have been pursued, and the siting of the house and the selection and use of materials are exemplary. A deceptively spacious plan complements and enhances the house’s rural setting.

Twenty-One House, Nelson
Palmer & Palmer Architects
Cleverly responding to the adjacent river and the immediate neighbourhood, this house is a beautifully composed and sequenced series of spaces. The contemporary forms have been well-crafted, and exhibit an imaginative selection and inventive use of materials.

Wairau Valley House, Blenheim
Parsonson Architects
This well-mannered and gracefully proportioned ranch house is exquisitely planned and detailed throughout. A delightful interplay between off-the-form concrete, finished timber and glass, combined with clever shifts in scale and the layering of forms, has produced a wonderful variety of open and contained spaces complementary to the landscape.

Waiwhero Farm House, Moutere Hills
Tennent + Brown Architects
Sitting lightly within the hills above Motueka, this farm house responds cleverly and sympathetically with the landscape to yield an uplifting and wonderfully elegant contemporary home. The impeccably detailed and finished timber-clad volumes are mediated by subtle shifts in plane and the interplay of edge and connections. A deceptively effortless composition has been shaped and constructed by skilled hands.

Sustainable Architecture

Victory Primary School Redevelopment, Nelson
Arthouse Architects
Deploying artful planning and careful economy, this project successfully reinvigorates a lower-decile primary school and its surrounding community. The outcome has been sustainably achieved, not so much through technology, form or detail, but rather thanks to the thoughtful efficiencies gained from the re-use of found materials, both fittings and whole buildings. The benefits and rewards of this exemplary project for Victory School are obvious: this is architecture sustainably engaging with the community.

Enduring Architecture

House at Melrose Terrace, Nelson
E.A. Plischke (1961)
This remarkable ‘rediscovery’ is a lesson in the core skills of home-making from one of New Zealand’s most admired and studied architects. The house, one suspects, was a significant influence on the Nelson architectural community in the 1960s, and it is still relevant as an exemplar of the planning, refinement and finesse of good modern architecture. It is to be hoped that the qualities of the restored house will be studied, celebrated and admired into the future.

Britannia Heights House, Nelson
Hal Wagstaff Architect (1969)
Bravely cantilevering out over its steep and dramatic site, this house delights all who enter it. With its intimate walled garden entry, sunny, private central courtyard, and interior illuminated by a precipitous ribbon of glazing the house seems to expand and recede like the tide below. A great credit to its architect, the house is both avant-garde and timeless, and beautifully inhabited.

ENDS

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