Glenorchy has made a rare splash at this year’s New Zealand Institute of Architects’ (NZIA) Southern Awards, announced last Friday.
In what developer Douglas Rickard-Bell is calling ‘‘a very prestigious award’’, The Great Glenorchy Alpine Base Camp, designed by RTA Studio’s Richard Naish and Bureaux’s Jessica Walker, won the hospitality category.
In its press release, NZIA dubs it ‘‘the most charming base camp ever built’’, saying ‘‘this hut-like visitor accommodation is scattered in fractured directions like the surrounding mountains’’.
Rickard-Bell also credits local builder Mike Kingan, Backcountry Engineering’s Chris Thomson for his upcycled iron artistry and Glenorchy sculptor Dan Kelly for the ‘falcon of good fortune’ above the front door.
Fittingly, given the awards were again presented in Arrowtown, local-based Anna-Marie Chin Architects and Assembly Architects each won two — the former for ‘Dalefield House’ and ‘Lake House’ renovation, and the latter for ‘Remarbuckle Crib’ at Jack’s Point and ‘Rock Solid’ at Aspen Grove.
Mason & Wales Architects won awards for local projects ‘Maunga Ora’ and ‘Closeburn Lodge’, Fearon Hay Architects for ‘Matagouri Drive’, at Jack’s Point’s The Preserve, and yoke for ‘The Pool’ — an Olympic-size pool matching an existing residence.
Ignite Architects, meanwhile, won a public architecture award for Queenstown’s Te Atamira arts and cultural centre.
Assembly Architects’ Louise Wright says the judges — including Queenstown interior designer Jewell Cassells — looked for a range of things including sustainability, connection to the landscape, appropriate colours and use of natural materials, and technical detailing.
Her husband, fellow architect Justin Wright, says the houses which won awards ‘‘actually enhance the landscape’’.
Special gong for redeveloped O’Connells
Skyline Enterprises’ redeveloped O’Connells building, in Queenstown’s CBD, has won ‘excellence and best in category’ for the Yardi Retail Property Award at the Property Council’s prestigious Property Industry Awards, held in Auckland last Friday.
The facelift was overseen by builder Naylor Love, McAuliffe Stevens Architects’ Preston Stevens and Powell Fenwick Consultants.
Property Council chief executive Leonie Freeman says: ‘‘Retail, and particular ly retail in Queenstown, has borne the brunt of the uncertainty of the past few years.
‘‘The redevelopment of O’Connells has reinvigorat ed the heart of this resort town.’’
