Last year saw the introduction of the new Community Impact Award to the annual Interior Awards programme, to help discover design with a greater purpose and for the common good.

Projects entered celebrate the collaboration and often pro bono work that designers and architects bring to the creation of spaces for communities and not-for-profit organisations.

The inaugural winner in 2023 was ĀKAU’s Te Puna Reo o Manga Tangaroa, which saw the coming together of a community to fund, design and build Aotearoa’s first full-immersion te reo Māori early childhood learning centre.

The jury said “this project transcends the line between design and community, process and product into an ‘act of care’ and it will, hopefully, stir a generation of like-minded small communities to aspire to deliver their own centres for their tamariki.”

On accepting the award, ĀKAU’s Ana Heremaia said it looked beyond the tangible to what impact design can have on a community. “We thank the Interior Awards for thinking outside the norm and celebrating what other value design can create.”

A prize of $5000 is awarded to the community that benefits from the winning project.

To be eligible to enter, the project must have been created with substantial community funding/fund-raising and cannot be fully or mainly funded through a government organisation or agency.

For more information and to enter, refer to interiorawards.co.nz