2013 Canterbury Architecture Awards Winner
The University of Canterbury: James Hight Undercroft
This is an energised transformation of an unloved Brutalist space used for housing bikes into a core area for student life. The solution to the deeply buried space is successful because it allows sufficient visual linkage to the outside through peripheral edge spaces, and has become part of a covered route through the campus. The vitality of the project, which admits light into and promotes movement through the covered route, is enhanced by a raised street of tenancies which overlook the central court space. The form and materiality of the original heavy concrete structure are respected, but juxtaposed with new elements to provide a lighter and more activated space. The insertion of slatted cedar ceilings, primary-coloured wall elements and furniture, along with randomised flooring layouts and careful lighting, give ease to a space that could have been forbidding.
- Practice
- Warren and Mahoney Architects Ltd
- Category
- Interior Architecture
- Location
- Canterbury
