Urban design expert backs heritage win

New Zealand's biggest office building project, Deloittes Tower on Auckland's Queen Street. The bottom floors of the building have incorporated the facade of the art deco Jean Batten Building. Photo /NZ Herald

An urban design specialist has backed a controversial heritage award for the remnants of Auckland's Jean Batten building.

Dushko Bogunovich, associate professor of urban design at Unitec, said the architects did the best they could with the old art deco building.

The Institute of Architects last week gave the award to Warren & Mahoney with Woods Bagot and Dave Pearson Architects. It said much more than the facade was retained and the dual tension between the new tower and the old building worked well.

The old building was incorporated into the larger 80 Queen St, the Deloitte Centre, and Bogunovich said this had saved the old structure.

"After the political compromise was reached, the architects did what they could. They were still under pressure from the developer for profit.

"But, overall, they did a good job. I am no champion of facadism but if ever there was a good example of facadism, the Deloitte/Jean Batten Building is it," he said.

He praised the architects for their involvement and for sustainability in the design and construction of the new tower.

Jette de Jong of the Art Deco Society called the heritage award a joke.

She said it condoned facadism and the institute would have been better not to make such an award.