2013 New Zealand Architecture Awards Winner
Whakatane Library Exhibition Centre
Given an abandoned building and a modest budget the architects, working closely with a committed client, have produced an important cultural destination, combining library, museum and exhibition spaces, and have revived a run-down Whakatane retail precinct. Resisting any urge to over-elaboration, the architects have focussed on doing a few things very well. A new canopy gives the building an urban scale, enlivened edges animate the adjacent public area, and an intelligent sequencing of interior spaces provides a generously proportioned and democratic environment. The architects’ pragmatic and sympathetic decisiveness extends to the exhibition stands and displays which they designed.
- Practice
- Irving Smith Architects Ltd
- Category
- Public Architecture
- Location
- Waikato / Bay of Plenty
