Gordon Moller's porte cochere ceiling and (right) the 30m long honey onyx tiled wall in the new hotel. The tiles are only 2cm thick so light can shine through them, showing their pattern to the best effect. Photo / Michael Craig
“An artificial sky” is how architect Gordon Moller describes an unusual design feature in Auckland’s newest five-star hotel where an underground roof mimics daylight.
He was the design lead on the new 13-level, 303-room Horizon by SkyCity hotel, designed by Moller Architects and Warren and Mahoney [WAM] and built by Fletcher Construction.
The interior roof of the porte cochere has backlighting which gives the impression that daylight is filtering into the lower ground area, flooding what is essentially a basement with natural light.
That’s precisely what he intended, although the pattern within the roof, he says, is open to interpretation. Is it the sky? The bush? Clouds? Branches of trees?
Make up your own mind about what you see, he encourages.
Moller also designed Auckland’s SkyTower, which opened 27 years ago.
John Coop, WAM managing director, is the project director for the hotel and NZICC. Many others from his practice are involved.
“In the drive towards completion, WAM chairman Andrew Tuinukuafe has anchored the role of project principal on both projects, supporting Ilona Haghshenas, Edwin Ipsen, Richard Archbold, and many others on our team over the years that we have been involved,” Coop said.
“Great projects are about teamwork and a diverse team of dedicated people from WAM and Moller Architects have worked together with the wider team and the contractor on achieving this outcome for our client,” he said.
Moller Architects has designed around 97% of SkyCity Auckland’s buildings and is also working with WAM to design the new NZICC, due to be finished next year.
At the new hotel, Moller said joinery and timber work in reception, the lounge, Onxy Bar and the lobby was done by Mt Roskill’s The Cabinet Place as a subcontractor to Fletcher Construction.
Tauranga’s Gartshore made joinery in guest rooms and suites including bed heads and vanities, Moller said.
Stonework was done by Parnell’s The Tile People, also a subcontractor to Fletcher Construction.
Moller recounts how work began on the hotel project a decade ago but was delayed due to the 2019 fire.
“The idea was to design an artificial sky. Because the area is underground, we wanted to make it a really positive space. We put a design on the roof, almost like vines in the bush or you could see it as clouds.
“People make their own minds up about what they see in the area. There would have been four or five people involved in that,” Moller says.
SkyCity says foliage and native bush are expressed in abstracted free form lines in the ceiling panels.
How many years has the hotel been worked on?
Moller Architects and WAM has been actively working on the project for the last 10 years, carrying out design, documentation and overseeing construction quality, Moller says.
The hotel was meant to open in 2019 but the devastating fire which broke out at the NZICC beside the hotel that year ended those plans.
It is now five years later that the hotel is opening on August 1.
What has the experience been like for you?
“Architecture is a joyous pursuit of creativity in realising the aspirations of our client to achieve great results. SkyCity had a clear concept of creating a five-star hotel, complementary to existing SkyCity and Grand hotels and as a creative companion to the soon-to-be-completed New Zealand International Convention Centre,” Moller says.
“The combined skills and experience of the Moller Architects and WAM resulted in design concepts enthusiastically received by SkyCity. We developed these through detailed analysis of guest experience and quality service, resulting in detailed design elements and material selections to create a quality environment.”
Coop said: “Great projects are the product of teamwork, and many members of our two practices have worked closely together through the project’s life”.
What is the biggest joy?
“The shape of the Horizon hotel, responding to site characteristics and to the NZICC has produced a dynamic interface of external and internal spaces, as well as a strong form in the central city urban fabric, so that is a joy,” Moller says.
What was the biggest challenge?
“Challenges have been many, as any large project will serve up. But the collaboration with WAM has been a huge success, both in the design process between our two practices, but also in achieving first-class construction quality,” Moller says.
“The fire was a challenge because it delayed the hotel for years. It was a disaster for the wider NZICC and hotel project, Moller says.
But the fire didn’t affect the hotel other than the basement where the plant is.
“We had to do remedials. But it delayed the whole project,” he recalls.
What about the carpets?
Moller Architects worked with a carpet manufacturer SF Design on the graduated colour carpets in the reception areas and Onyx Bar.
Gordon Moller’s daughter Jodie Moller led the design of those graded carpets where the hue changes from one end of the floor to the other across their length “like light in the sky”, Gordon Moller said.
“The carpets in the Hobson St reception lobbies have a graded yarn colour transition, symbolic of the subtle colours experienced at the horizon during sunrise and sunset,” he says.
A startling blue carpet with gold and white petals and leaves is on the floor of the private dining area of The Grill restaurant. Mollers worked with ECC on that special feature, selected from a range of exotic carpets.
“We tended to be thinking about the environment here. The carpet in the private dining room is like leaves or petals [on a blue sea]. We’re a harbour city and we think along those lines when we pick a carpet like that. It’s a series of linking ideas to provide a craft-based zone,” Moller said.
Jodie Moller said: “The carpet in the private dining room has a scattering of leaves and petals. The blue palette reflects our position on the edge of the Waitematā.
“We often draw on our surroundings when considering the use of materials. It’s a series of linking ideas to provide a craft-based zone.”
What is Transcendence by Gordon Moller with colleague Jake Tindall in the Onyx Bar?
“This was inspired by the ubiquitous pohutukawa tree, the design idea of the 12-storey high sculpture Is the leaf. We have abstracted to express the essence of its elements of form and texture, to be seen in its entirety as a welcome to the hotel, but also up close from each floor level to enhance the drama of its existence as one element as part of a whole assembly, juxtaposing shape, position, spatial quality, lighting and shadow,” Moller says.
The leaf forms are made from anodised aluminium and were manufactured in Lower Hutt by Metco Engineering.
Why 19 leaves?
“Because they’re each 2.4m long and we wanted them to create an overall sculptural dialogue up through the 12 levels from the ground floor to the top. They vary in their shape.
“Each of the leaves has about 20 individual elements which are like fins coming out the side, so you can change them,” says Moller, a former president of Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects.
In 2006, he won this country’s highest architectural award: The institute’s gold medal, in recognition of consistent and outstanding work and service.
“His work in New Zealand reached a peak of public exposure with the design of the SkyTower in Auckland in 1993-1994, a provocative building that was the subject of vigorous debate.
“It has since become an established and familiar part of the city skyline, regarded affectionately even by many of those who once opposed it,” the institute said in awarding him the medal.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
Other large healthcare hubs near the site include Southern Cross and Auckland Eye.