The award-winning building at Unitec before demolition work began. Photo / Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZ Institute of Architects
The award-winning building at Unitec before demolition work began. Photo / Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZ Institute of Architects
Architects are unhappy about demolition of an award-winning Auckland building, saying it had such design merit it won a top award.
Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects posted its disappointment about the loss of Unitec’s landscape and plant sciences building, showing on social media how it looked beforedemolition and part-way through.
The land is to be developed. One person with a connection to the project said: “I can see how a building designed to be part of an education precinct might be unsuitable in the middle of a big housing development filled with blocks of apartments.”
Influential architecture firm Mitchell Stout Dodd designed the building, describing its work as reinterpreting the Oxbridge model of tertiary buildings in a delightfully informal and contemporary South Pacific way.
In 2005, the practice won a public architecture award, praised for designing a building of considerable architectural quality that could easily have been re-used for many different functions.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing and Development said the building was included in a 2018 transaction between Unitec and the Crown over the transfer of 29.3ha of land.
The building was on part of land that Unitec had rezoned for development, he said.
Architects said the demolition of a fine and useful piece of architecture during a time of climate change was upsetting.
Mitchell Stout Dodd says the building was an intimate arrangement of offices and ancillary spaces.
“We prepared a masterplan for the school to cover projected development, and give order to the rather disordered collection of buildings and spaces that had accrued on the site,” it said.
“The project consists of a staff studies administration block with 30 offices of varying sizes interspersed with meeting rooms, interview rooms and toilets. We substantially rearranged existing functions to place large groups in large-span existing structures.”
Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZ Institute of Architects showed how the Unitec building looked as it was being demolished.
The smaller rooms used by staff could then be grouped in one of the new buildings.
The project aimed to bring about a collegiality that the existing buildings lacked.
“The courtyard form assisted this, and on a site surrounded on three sides by roads, offered a private world as an alternative to the very open campus view. Precast concrete panels and stained plywood have been used to great effect to create a distinctive and durable building that came in under budget and on time,” the architects said.
More than 600 people have so far reacted to the NZIA’s announcement of the building’s demise.
Plans for the new housing project Maungārongo on ex-Unitec land.
The ministry spokesman indicated demolition of the buildings was part of plans for redevelopment.
“The rōpū of Marutūāhu, Ngāti Whatua and Waiohua-Tāmaki are leading the planning and development of the site, with Waiohua-Tāmaki leading this programme of works,” the ministry spokesman said.
“The development will include much-needed new housing, delivered by the rōpū, who’s intention is for future buildings to have architectural merit in their own right, and reflect the influence of the rōpū and iwi in their design.”
The Unitec building as it looked before work started on the demolition. Photo / Te Kāhui Waihanga NZ.
The ministry understood Waiohua-Tāmaki investigated repurposing of the building, but it was going to be difficult for it to meet the project’s needs, he said.
The project site was planned to support more than 4000 homes, with medium to high intensification across the site, to help meet Auckland’s housing needs.
The site is well-located for education, employment, amenity and recreation, he said.
