Two Northland buildings win NZ Architecture Awards - Hihiaua Cultural Centre takes out the big honour

Whangārei's Hihiaua Cultural Centre won two awards at the NZ Architecture Awards, including the prestigious John Scott Award for Public Architecture - the country's premier award. Photo / Simon Devitt

Two Northland buildings have won awards at the New Zealand Architecture Awards - the Hihiaua Cultural Centre in Whangārei and the Bowden House on the Tutukaka Coast.

Hihiaua Cultural Centre won the Public Architecture Award at Wednesday night's award ceremony, which was carried out online due to Covid-19.

As well, the centre, based on the Hihiaua Peninsula on the Whangārei waterfront also won the prestigious John Scott Award for Public Architecture - the country's premier award for public architecture. The centre was designed by Moller Architects.

The Bowden House - designed by Belinda George Architects and Mandeno Design - won the Housing section in the awards. It was designed as a semi-circular arrangement of living areas and bedrooms organised around a grass courtyard on a flat, clifftop site.

The Bowden House, on the Tutukaka Coast, that won the Housing category at the 2020 NZ Architecture Awards. Photo / Simon Devitt

Hihiaua Cultural Centre Trust chairman Ryan Welsh was thrilled with the win for what is the first stage of the cultural centre.

"We are ecstatic on winning the New Zealand Architectural Award in the Public Building category,'' Welsh said.

''It's a true testament to the vision held by our elders and carried through by many. Credit also to Craig Moller Architects. This is a genuine community asset which has now been given national recognition. Hihiaua is punching well above its weight. Watch this space for stage two."

Twenty-seven projects, from the Tutukaka Coast in Northland to Lake Hayes in Central Otago, with an exotic outlier in Taiwan, have been recognised in New Zealand's leading construction industry awards programme.

The winners in the 2020 New Zealand Architecture Awards range from private houses to a high school, a bowling club to an eco-sanctuary shelter, a chapel to an opera house.

Four awards, named for celebrated New Zealand architects, constitute the top tier of the New Zealand Architecture Awards.

This year, the John Scott Award for Public Architecture went to the Hihiaua Cultural Centre in Whangārei.

The Māori education and exhibition centre, designed by Moller Architects, occupies a converted boatshed alongside the Hātea River, and comprises the Whare Toi, accommodating arts and craft activities, and Whare Waka, home to a collection of waka.

The awards jury visited 46 shortlisted projects over nine days in September. Judging in the New Zealand Architecture Awards, unlike other industry awards programmes, is based on physical visits not just looking at photographs, and jury convenor, Auckland architect Michael Thomson, was pleased the tour could take place in such a disrupted year.

"The jury was impressed by the standard of work presented to us," Thomson said.

"Many of the projects we visited seem particularly relevant in a year in which we've all had time to consider what's important in our own lives, what matters in our communities, and what is special about our country.

"On our tour, we encountered a determination to realise the potential of architectural projects, whether the jobs are big or small, and whether the clients are individuals or organisations."