Designs' Maori emphasis earns international accolade for NZ firm

Patterson project Parihoa near Muriwai Beach won an award from World Architecture News. Photo / Supplied

Patterson Associates, headed by Auckland architect Andrew Patterson, has won an international award for a collection of work emphasising Maori links including the Hills golf clubrooms near Arrowtown and a Ponsonby house for the Wall family opposite Radio Live.

The firm was one of five to win the World Architecture News awards, having submitted five buildings: The house on Arthur St known as Mai Mai Folly and commissioned by Sue and Roger Wall, Parnell office block Cumulus, the Kawarau Gorge AJ Hackett Bungy Centre, the Michael Hill Golf Clubhouse near Queenstown and Parihoa, a West Auckland house near Muriwai Beach.

Last night, the Institute of Architects awarded Architecture Workshop its supreme award for the new Waitomo glow worm caves visitor centre.

An international judging panel praised Patterson Associates for visually strong designs, its approach to sustainability and a non-nostalgic appearance to its buildings.

Norwegian, Japanese, Danish and Spanish firms won awards too.

Andrew Patterson said it was important that Maori heritage in design was recognised.

"All our work is underpinned by a core assumption that if a building logically belongs in its ecology, then people connected with that architecture cannot help but feel the logic in belonging there also," he said.

"This is the first time ideas relating to te reo have been recognised on the international architectural stage."

The judges said Patterson Associates explored a new way of thinking to provide a sense of belonging in its buildings.

"If the purpose of architecture is to create places for people, consider the Maori concept of belonging. This is communicated in a creation parable: the story of two entities, Earth Mother and Sky Father who were locked in a sensual embrace. The first people were the product of that coupling," the judges said.

"In pre-Western New Zealand, architecture was literally generated from the people who inhabited it.

"Illustrated is an early New Zealand meeting house; its post and beam structure is laid out anthropomorphically as the body of a founding ancestor supported by the family group, all carved to communicate the identities involved.

"The meeting house is conceived of as a physical extension of the people whom it was for."