An inventive and aspirational installation, designed by Patterson Associates and carried out in collaboration with Inside Out Productions for the New Zealand Guest of Honour Pavilion – Frankfurt Book Fair, was a double winner at the 2013 Interior Awards, announced on 20 June. The Publishers Association of New Zealand ( PANZ ) and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage were joint clients.

The large-scale project,  ‘While you were sleeping’,  was recognised with the programme’s highest honour, the Supreme Award, along with the category award for Installation Design.

The judges commented:

When CK Stead wrote, “These are mythical islands, afloat, anchored off a perfect coast,” he could very well have been referring to New Zealand Guest of Honour Pavilion at the Frankfurt Book Fair, for it perfectly summarises the concept that was executed. Designed by Patterson Associates, and then completed in association with Inside Out Productions,  this exhibit is comprised of six glowing sub-pavilions arranged around a central meeting space, beside an ink black pool, and under a constellation of stars. “While you were sleeping” was the key theme here, a reference to the fact that while the rest of the world is asleep, we Antipodeans are very much awake. One thing is certain: these architects were awake and working against time and distance to create a representation of New Zealand that wasn’t twee and clichéd. Into each scented sub-pavilion they have installed an intimate, hanging library – a book chandelier. Each sub-pavilion is a storytelling device in its own right but when realigned all six become a 360° visual experience, awash with multimedia drama. This exhibition was considered faultless, rigorously thought through, inventive and aspirational… If you could ask one of the 90,000 people who visited, they might say that it was layer upon layer of drama, activity and sensory delight.

View video footage of ‘While you were sleeping’.