Nelson Architecture Awards (+pic gallery)

A Fridge House and an ‘artistic’ factory were among building designs celebrated at the 2009 Nelson Marlborough Architecture Awards.

Picture Gallery: Selection of winning designs. Click on images for details, use arrows to scroll through the gallery.

Judging panel convenor, architect Gary Hopkinson, said: “The standard of entries was exceptional and it was very difficult to narrow down the winners.”

This year all the winning buildings are in Nelson, apart from Westport’s Solid Energy Centre, and most were designed by Nelson practices.

Fridge House

One of the most unusual and low budget winning projects was the innovative Fridge House by Irving Smith Jack Architects which has been ‘built like a fridge’ and constructed of polystyrene refrigeration panels.

A winner in the small project architecture category, it was built on a “minimal budget” of well below $100,000 and won accolades for its elegant simplicity and light airy interiors.

Despite its name and position on a cold south-facing valley floor section, the prefabricated panels provide such good insulation that the entire house can be efficiently heated in winter by just one single plug-in heater.

Contour Factory

The artistic Contour Factory by Jerram Tocker Barron Architects was among commercial architecture winners.

The building was inspired by optical effects in the work of French artist Georges Seurat and pop art exponent Bridget Riley.

The jury felt that bands of complementary colours on the roof help the building appear to merge into the landscape.

Commercial winners

A commercial architecture award also went to Wakatu House, the new HQ of the Wakatu Maori incorporation.

The building by Matz Architects includes a nine metre high Po guarding the entrance. It was praised by the jury as subtle yet well-defined with a “confident presence”.

Public architecture winners

The new teaching block for the NMIT School of Tourism, Hospitality and Wellbeing, by Jerram Tocker Barron Architects, and the Solid Energy Centre, by Boon Goldsmith Bhaskar Brebner Team Architecture, were winners in the public architecture category.

The jury remarked how at night the colourful interior of the NMIT building “shares its interest and humour with the street via a glass curtain wall”.

The Solid Energy recreation and events centre was hailed as “an astonishing multi-sport facility”, with sophisticated planning and innovative use of natural light.

Public architecture honours were also awarded to the “reinvention” of the Stoke Medical Centre, by Irving Smith Jack Architects, and the new Trafalgar Centre - Southern Extension to Nelson’s events centre - by Arthouse Architecture, described as “already a sculptural icon”.

Interior

The Sachi Sushi & Seafood Bar, also by Arthouse Architecture, was sole winner in the interior architecture section, summed up as “a delight” for its harmony, simplicity and subtlety and sensuous palette of materials and colours”.

Residential winners

Winners in residential architecture included the Fox-Hansen House by Athfield Architects, Wellington, which charmed judges as a “whimsical home with some beautiful surprises”.

Barron House by Jerram Tocker Barron Architects, won praise for the incorporation of passive solar design and the “outstanding grasps of balance, harmony, subtle surprise and contrast between apparent lightness, solidity and strength”.

An “elegantly proportioned” Balinese courtyard house, in a coastal location, by Studio Pacific Architecture, was described as a “triumph” and an inner city Courtyard House, by redbox architects, won acclaim for extensive use of glazing allowing sunlight to penetrate deep into the interior.

Mr Hopkinson was joined on the jury by architects Guy Herschell and Carol Curtis from Nelson and sculptor Tim Royall of Nelson.

As well as visiting all shortlisted properties, the judges met with the architects and clients. The buildings were judged against a series of key criteria including their contribution to the advancement of architecture as a discipline and enhancement of the human spirit.

For more award winning New Zealand architecture visit, www.nzia.co.nz