In the Wairarapa town of Carterton (population: 4,000), an idea for a new events centre took off when a local community group realised that the area needed a purpose-built town hall and lobbied for sponsorship and funding to build it. Eventually New Zealand’s second smallest council, Carterton District Council, backed the project and Opus Architecture was brought on board as designer.

The Opus team undertook extensive research to understand the needs of about 80 community groups that would regularly occupy the space. The result is a highly flexible 2,200m2 building, rectangular in form with a deep plan which pulls plenty of natural daylight into the building.

A sail-shaded courtyard connects a lively and colourful toy library with a revamped existing youth centre. New insertions include community meeting rooms, archival storage and various activity spaces. The building links into a refurbished Grade 2-listed heritage library. Since it opened, the Centre’s popularity has led to even more uses, including acting as a temporary district court.

The design features multiple entrances and connections to support various events and activities simultaneously, and passive sustainable devices, including rainwater recycling and solar systems, to ensure energy efficient usage with allowances for more active system upgrades in the future.

Opus Architecture’s sustainability manager and architect, Bruce Curtain, described the design process as, “a challenge to keep the size manageable and affordable and to get the plan to work in terms of operations and well-connected spaces that can be used independently or together” but, he adds, “the community was hugely supportive, which helped us a lot.”

For a small town, Carterton has never shied away from being ambitious, open-minded and proud of its heritage; it is the birthplace of the famous left-handed golfer Sir Bob Charles and was the first place in the world to have a transsexual mayor, Georgina Beyer. Fortunately, Opus avoided reference to the town’s floral claim to fame – Carterton is the ‘daffodil capital’ of New Zealand apparently – instead choosing more elegant ornamentation: a series of graphic metal waves which make a gestural sweep across the building’s glass façade frontage.

During the piling excavations, various found historical objects were unearthed, including 19th century cigarette packets, fig and hair tonics, and a Belgian liqueur bottle, which are now on display within the building. Local imagery by Masterton-based photographer Pete Nikolaison has been built into the spaces; a meeting room acoustic wall showcases a forest walk scene, while a photograph of the Ruamahunga River and Gladstone wheatfields has been applied to a slider door in the foyer. Outside a sympathetic streetscape will extend up the road over the coming months, complete with salvaged historical gas lamps.