Some of the capital’s finest new architectural projects were on show last night as judges revealed the winners of the Wellington Architecture Awards for 2011.

Sixteen projects were awarded, including a number of buildings that judges said had made a ‘positive impact on the civic realm’. This included award-winning entries Taranaki Wharf West by Athfield Architects and Te Wharewaka by architecture+.

Other standouts in the public domain were Wellington Airport’s new international passenger terminal by Studio Architects and Warren and Mahoney (also recently announced as an Inside award winner), a gymnasium at Mt Cook School by Designgroup Stapleton Elliott and Kimi Ora School Naenae by Bell Kelly Beaumont Team Architects.

The New Zealand Institute of Architects-run local awards programme recognises the best architecture produced in New Zealand. Award winners from the eight regional branches will be shortlisted for the national level of the awards programme, to be announced on 25 May, 2012.

Below is a list of 2011 Wellington Architecture Award winners, with judges’ citations.

Commercial Architecture

Asteron Centre, Wellington City
Warren and Mahoney Architects Ltd 
Citation: A large 15-storey office building on a prominent corner site has been treated as two separate buildings, a strategy that has resulted in a more elegant and humanly scaled architecture. Full citation here.

Mount Cook School Gymnasium
Designgroup Stapleton Elliott
Citation: The Architect has produced a building that is simple in form yet dynamic in delivery. The kind of boldness evident in this project entails risk, but here vision and enthusiasm have been tempered with practical solutions and considered detailing to produce a real gem. Full citation here.

Pipitea House, Thorndon
Athfield Architects Limited
Citation: With its well balanced composition of complex elements this building acknowledges its site and surroundings while providing the heightened security required by the tenant. Full citation here.

Wellington Airport International Passenger Terminal
Studio of Pacific Architecture Limited and Warren and Mahoney Architects for joint venture
Citation: Different, without a doubt, the building dubbed ‘The Rocks’ puts its stamp, ironically, on New Zealand’s air travel landscape. In its defiance of analogies about the freedom and levity of flight, the building’s external language is certainly unusual. Full citation here.

Enduring Architecture 

Lower Hutt Civic Precinct
Structon Group Architects and King, Cook & Dawson
Citation: The Lower Hutt City Civic Precinct functions as an ensemble of high quality post-War Modern Movement architecture and town planning, unique in New Zealand as a planned and completed civic composition. Full citation here.

Heritage

Government House Conservation
Athfield Architects Limited
Citation: The result of this significant heritage project, which was subject to a rigorous conservation process, is a revived building fit for its purpose as personal residence, working office, and national symbol of New Zealand’s Head of State. Full citation here.

Interior Architecture 

Government House Conservation
Athfield Architects Limited 
Citation: The subtle mix of contemporary architecture and faithful conservation in this building’s interior constitutes an exercise in understated confidence. Full citation here.

Planning and Urban Design

Taranaki Wharf West
Athfield Architects Limited
Citation: Building successfully on and relating well to its precedents, this project is the last piece in the jigsaw of Wellington waterfront’s public domain. Full citation here.

Public Architecture

Te Wharewaka, Taranaki Wharf
architecture +
Citation: Te Wharewaka is a distinctive form that takes a stately position on Wellington’s waterfront and re-establishes the presence of local iwi on the water’s edge. While the building adopts a simple whare form it has been draped with an architectural interpretation of the korowai or cloak. Full citation here.

Kimi Ora School Naenae
Bell Kelly Beaumont Team Architects Ltd
Citation: This school transcends its indifferent surroundings with an architecture that is both welcoming and inclusive. The light that floods into the lobby illuminates spaces connected visually across a glazed courtyard and connecting corridor. Full citation here.

Residential Architecture - Houses

Concrete House, Kelburn
Simon Twose Architect Limited 
Citation: Conceived of as a courtyard house, this building goes beyond the usual notions of a home. Curved concrete panels, continuous spaces and glass walls link the activities within the house. Full citation here.

Bradey Road Pavilion, Pauatahanui
McKenzie Higham Architecture
Citation: A delicate glass addition extends and completes this solid modern home. The luxurious theme created by the interior finishes and furnishings is extended into the pavilion, with striking results. Full citation here.

Hataitai House
John Mills Architects
Citation: Clearly, this is a Wellington home. The house is located on a compact and steep site pinned against Mount Victoria but with glorious views out to Wellington harbour and the Tararuas beyond. Full citation here.

Steeple Lane House, Seatoun
Novak + Middleton Architects
Citation: Departing from the norm of the New Zealand house as an object surrounded by private space, this house staunchly locates itself at that edge of public space. The result is a clear delineation of the public and private realms. Full citation here.

Small Project Architecture

Wilton House Alterations, Seatoun
WATT Architects
Citation: Designed to accommodate a young family, this is a small addition with a huge impact. The house connects the street to the rear garden via a logical sequence of living spaces. Full citation here.

Maori Women’s Welfare League, Thorndon
Herriot + Melhuish: Architecture Ltd (HMA)
Citation: This building, which functions as both office and residence, engages with its surroundings with certainty, confidence and sincerity. The proportions are considered and definite, and seamless in their relationship of traditional with contemporary. Full citation here.

Sustainable Architecture

The Customhouse, Harbour Quays, Wellington
Studio of Pacific Architecture Limited
Citation: Close collaboration between Architect and engineers has resulted in a building in which sustainability is integrated seamlessly into the architecture, an approach exemplified by the pre-cast concrete flooring that provides abundant thermal mass and accommodates chilled beams and lighting. Full citation here.

Kimi Ora School Naenae
Bell Kelly Beaumont Team Architects Ltd 
Citation: This building’s sustainability is integral to the joy of its architecture. The controlled and considered handling of natural light, landscaping to integrate and mitigate, careful materials selection, pleasing low-impact finishes, and intelligent environmental systems epitomise a very well-rounded design approach. Full citation here.

2011 local award winners in other regions can be found here: Nelson Marlborough Architecture Awards; Auckland Architecture Awards; Canterbury Architecture Awards; Wellington Architecture Awards; Western Architecture Awards; Waikato Bay of Plenty Architecture Awards; Gisborne Hawkes Bay Architecture Awards.