Waitohi sets a benchmark for this growing community, creating a visible and welcoming presence that ties together existing facilities. Containing a library, kindergarten, café, and community meeting rooms, Waitohi has a grand civic scale. Waitohi’s tilted roof plane gives the building its local prominence, and generous canopied edges interface with the public domain. The building, with its historical references to the site and former forest, is conceptually strong. Interiors express the story of the place through cultural patterns, tree-like timber columns, and warm materials with forest colourways. The project is an outstanding outcome of a successful consultation process, and has created a real civic heart for this growing town centre.