Architecture proves its worth in challenging times

Architecture proves its worth in challenging times

A dozen projects ranging from houses to offices and a school to an army workshop have been acknowledged in the 2012 Western Architecture Awards, the New Zealand Institute of Architects’ official awards programme for the Taranaki, Whanganui, Manawatu and Horowhenua regions.

The winners were announced in an event on 2 November at Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery, itself a recipient of an award for its enduring architectural quality.

“The awards reveal the scope of work undertaken by architects,” said the convenor of the Awards jury, Whanganui architect Duncan Sinclair. “They also show that no matter the scale of a building, architects can make a big difference to the quality of its design.”

“We are finding this is a particular priority of clients in current economic conditions.”

It is a reflection of present circumstances, Sinclair said, that several awards went to projects which adapted existing buildings. Boon Goldsmith Bhaskar Team Architects received an award for JRI Offices in New Plymouth, in which the architects have refurbished a 1970s building to create what the Awards jury said is “a warm and welcoming interior that imparts a semi-domestic feel to a commercial space”.

The same firm also won an award for Powerco Project Open, New Plymouth, which involved converting an old, shed-like building into a modern working environment with more than 60 workstations.

“The new use of an old industrial workshop demonstrates how successful such conversions can be if pursued with sympathy and imagination,” the jury said.

On a much smaller scale, Boon Goldsmith Bhaskar Team Architects inserted a new bathroom into the Antunovich House in Oakura to provide, the jury said, “a nice addition that might disrupt the traditional Kiwi tendency to treat the kitchen as the centre of activity for any party”.

Two larger projects that provide welcome amenity for very different clients received awards. GHD Architecture’s design of a workshop at the army’s Linton Camp near Palmerston North adds, the jury said, “an elegant levity to a building of considerable mass”.

On the Whanganui River at Ranana, the Te Wainui a Rua School designed by Opus Architecture is “an inspiring learning environment”, the jury said. “The design raises the bar for schools in remote areas, and flies the flag for the education of the children who are our future”.

Further down the Whanganui River, two other projects received Western Architecture Awards. With the Dickson House in Whanganui, the awards jury said that architect Bruce Dickson “set out to design a family home very much in the New Zealand tradition”. In this, the jury said, the architect “has succeeded admirably”.

The jury gave an Enduring Architecture Award to Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery, which was built in 1919 to the design of a young architect, Donald Hosie, who was killed at Passchendaele two years earlier.

Hosie’s architecture practice, Edmund Anscombe and Associates, oversaw the construction of the Sarjeant Gallery which, the jury noted, has “an outstanding reputation as one of New Zealand’s finest provincial art galleries with an enduring importance in the cultural life of its city”.

Three houses in New Plymouth received Awards. Plymouth Road Farmhouse, designed by Architects Ian Pritchard, “nestles comfortably into a natural terrace” and has a “sophisticated interior detailing that is well conceived and equally well realised”.

The Lloyd House, designed by Saunders Architects, is “a joyful and even whimsical house for happily idiosyncratic clients”, the jury said. Dubbed the “Love Boat”, the house has a nautical theme, and a “touch of James Bond dash and bravado that is guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of any visitor”.

At the Cameron Buckley House, designed by Boon Goldsmith Bhaskar Team Architecture, the sawn timber exterior cladding has been continued into the interior and combined with refined joinery to provide “a sophisticated camping ambience”.

A Palmerston North house carefully designed for its natural setting received an award. The House of Emotions, a building by Architype-Shadbolt Architects that sits under the branches of a mature Pin Oak, is “sympathetically designed to meet the changing needs of clients anticipating retirement”.

Quite the opposite imperative governed the design, by Boon Goldsmith Bhaskar Team Architects, of a showroom and workshop for a New Plymouth car dealership, Energy City Motors.

“Client and architect have combined well on the design of this this project in which material selection and the quality of finishes has enhanced the user experience on both sides of the counter.”

Joining Duncan Sinclair on the 2012 Western Architecture Awards jury were Auckland architect Adam Mercer, Wellington architect David Craig, New Plymouth architect Eldon Peters, and Whanganui photographer Richard Wotton.

ENDS

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