Six Northland buildings are winners at architecture awards

Bay of Islands Airport, Kerikeri, is one of four buildings to receive awards in the Public Architecture section of the Auckland Architecture Awards.

Six Northland structures - four homes and two public buildings - have earned accolades in the Auckland Architecture Awards.

Forty-four projects have received awards in the 2020 Auckland Architecture Awards, a peer-reviewed awards programme run by Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA), it was announced today.

The award-winning projects demonstrate the extraordinary breadth of work undertaken by architects in the Auckland Branch of the NZIA, which extends from the city to the Far North, NZIA Awards jury convenor Jane Aimer said.

The winners included four homes in Northland among the eight winners in the housing in the Housing section and two in the Public Architecture section.

The Bay of Islands Airport build at Kerikeri was one of four winners in the Public Architecture section, along with Whangārei's Hihiaua Cultural Centre. The $4.7 million airport rebuild included $1.75m from the Provincial Growth Fund.

Whangārei's Hihiaua Cultural Centre also received an award in the Public Architecture section of the Auckland Architecture Awards.

Of the 11 winners in the Housing section four were in Northland - the Bowden house, on the Tutukaka Coast; another home in Tutukaka; a home in Ohaeawai, named Lovers Leap; and a Parekura Bay house in the Bay of Islands.

Aimer, who was joined on the judging panel by fellow Auckland jurors Nicholas Dalton and Eva Nash, Wellington architect Stuart Gardyne and broadcaster Eric Young, praised the quality of the work submitted in this year's awards programme.

"We were impressed and encouraged by the dedication and care taken by architects to create sustainable, healthy and beautiful buildings, fit for purpose and appropriate to their physical and cultural contexts," Aimer said.

What the judges said of the Northland winners:

Bay of Islands Airport, Kerikeri, designed by Eclipse Architecture.
This project took a very challenging brief – which changed, along with its budget, many times – that sought to strike a balance between immediate needs and the anticipation of future growth. The architect diagrammed the flow of incoming and outgoing passengers and drew inspiration from the idea of an eddy to place a café in the centre of the two streams of passengers. The stratagem works and because it does, Bay of Islands Airport is one of the more successful regional airports. Artwork created by local mana whenua artists grounds the project and reflects its near-civic nature as an expression of manaakitanga, which is about being gracious hosts. The desire of architect and clients that the building should tell the stories of the local iwi is certainly worth celebrating.

Hihiaua Cultural Centre, designed by Moller Architects.
This cultural centre was delivered after a comprehensive co-design process with the community, an exercise that was integral in the realisation of a building used and valued by that community. A series of spaces break off a linear loggia or porch, raised slightly off the ground so that its edge can serve as a seat when, for example, people are engaged in weaving. Every centimetre of this centre is carefully designed and constructed. It's not every day you get to design a building next to an awa, with a gantry which can, once a waka is carved, hoist it up and lower it into the river.

The Bowden house, on the Tutukaka Coast, is one of four Northland buildings to receive awards in the housing section of the Auckland Architecture Awards.

Bowden House, Belinda George Architects and Mandeno Design in association.
This stunning cedar-clad house is an outstanding project. The semi-circular plan nestles into the site, and the curved form conveys a sense of spatial coherence. The house's natural rhythm allows for spaces that connect with each other, and the environment. The material palette is beautifully resolved and perfectly articulated to fit the crescent moon shape.

This Parekura Bay house, in the Bay of Islands, was a winner in the housing section of the Auckland Architecture Awards.

Parekura Bay House, Bossley Architects.

Exposed concrete frames define this remote Bay of Islands home nestled into regenerated native planting.

Responding to the client's brief, the striking structure is composed of pre-cast concrete frames, creating a rhythm that articulates the mass and gives a nod to the Brutalist tradition. The frames are successfully expressed on both the interior and exterior of the three separate pavilions that follow the contour of the site.

This home in Ohaeawai, named Lovers Leap, was one of four Northland winners in the housing section of the Auckland Architecture Awards.

Lovers Leap, Bull O'Sullivan Architecture.

This legacy project for one of the earliest Pākehā families in the district, whose ancestor signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, replaces the original hilltop homestead with its generations of accumulated memories. The new whare, "Lovers Leap", is appropriately austere in its materiality given its rural location, and pragmatic in its intent; there are lots of areas to kick off the gumboots. The courtyard off the back of the kitchen – not a stereotypical design move – offers shelter from the wind and a place for intimate kōrero.

This home in Tutukaka was one of four Northland winners in the housing section of the Auckland Architecture Awards.

Tutukaka House, Herbst Architects.

Once again, Herbst Architects have delivered a well-considered and exquisitely crafted house by the sea, in this case a home surrounded by pastoral land and pockets of native bush with a stunning view towards the Poor Knights Islands. The use of rammed earth construction to anchor both ends of the building contrasts with a lightly-touching-the-earth verandah-like structure spanning between them.