NMIT Arts and Media Building Wins National Excellence Award

New Release

For Immediate Release

14 June 2011

NMIT Arts and Media Building Wins National Excellence Award

Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology’s landmark Arts and Media Building has won the Award of Excellence in the Education and Arts Category at the 2011 Property Council of New Zealand Awards.

The building is a world first for both innovative use of wood in the structure of multi-storied buildings and incorporates new generation earthquake-resistant engineering technology. It also marks a new era for the arts by providing an inspirational and purpose-built base for art learning with up-to-date technology and art and media workspaces.

Martin Vanner, Director of Finance and Corporate Services at NMIT says they’re very proud to have won the award.

“We’d like to congratulate the team that created this great new facility: Irving Smith Jack our architects, Aurecon our engineers and Arrow for construction and project management.

Not only is it an inspirational building for our Arts & Media students and staff who enjoy the ‘state of the art’ facilities and extensive exhibition and performance spaces but is being used as a sustainable example of building structures and seismic technologies that can used to help rebuild in Christchurch”

The Property Council awards are an annual celebration of excellence in property development, recognizing efficient use of capital, maximum investor return and for public buildings, the greatest community benefit.

Entries go through a rigorous, 12 week process in which a panel of judges visit and review each submission, setting it against detailed criteria.

Judges commented: ‘Set in a region renowned for being an arts incubator, the NMIT Arts and Media Building is a development that meets both NMIT’s brief and MAF requirements for a scheme that delivers an appropriate teaching facility providing a variety if specialist learning areas. The projects uses and showcases timber as a structural form, highlights the use of timer in multi-storey buildings, and delivers an environmentally sound building within the available budget.”

Project Architect Andrew Irving, of Irving Smith Jack Architects, said ‘These awards are seldom presented outside the main centres, so it is a reflection of the efforts of the Nelson based design and construction teams in realising NZ’s Landmark Timber Structural Building. We see this as affirmation that the world leading timber technology, developed for this project with Aurecon and the University of Canterbury, represents a viable approach to developing public and commercial buildings.’

ENDS

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