Queenstown's dramatic Remarkables ski field base has won the supreme award at the commercial building awards, announced in Auckland tonight.
The $21.86 million project won prizes in the tourism and leisure category, a gold award, a prize for a building worth more than $15m and the supreme honour at the Registered Master Builders' Association's Commercial Projects Awards, held at the Langham Hotel, Auckland.
"When you are working halfway up a mountain at 1600m, you need to be well organised, as far as material deliveries and labour resources are concerned, not only for all of the main building components, but also the subcontractors," the judges said.
"When you are this far away from civilisation, you can't just drive down the road to the local supplier or call up additional personal. Pre-planning across all aspects of the project was once of the key drivers that enabled this $21.86m project to be delivered, one month ahead of an already tight construction programme," they said.
The building is visited by around 3500 people a day during the ski season and has restaurants, kitchens, a sophisticated mechanical plant, ski collection stations, shops, open dining spaces and full-height double glazed windows capturing spectacular mountain views.
