The argument for timber is easy: we develop it right here — rapidly and sustainably — and it sequesters CO2 from the ambiance, contributing to our collective effort to blunt the results of our quickly worsening local weather disaster.
Even these with out a explicit historic bent may have gained a way of the rise of mass timber structure in New Zealand lately. The amount of such work — at the very least with the type of buildings we see in structure magazines reminiscent of this one — has risen from one constructing yearly or two within the 2000s, to it turning into a continuing presence on these pages. Round half of the big new buildings in final yr’s NZIA Nationwide Awards checklist employed mass timber.
Scanning by means of the buildings on this itinerary, we’re introduced with an array of timber configurations — glue-laminated timber (glulam), laminated veneer lumber (LVL) and cross-laminated timber (CLT). There’s additionally a variety of structural applied sciences, significantly when a number of storeys or giant measurement enlarge seismic masses — rocking partitions, shear partitions, field beams, dampers, composite ground cassettes and all the remainder. For architects, venturing into unfamiliar territory, particularly as regards prices and the quantity of effort required to keep up high quality requirements, can whiten the knuckles. Unsurprisingly, our high-profile timber designs have been produced by a reasonably small circle of companies; a number of companies seem greater than as soon as in these listings. Likewise, few engineers have developed important experience with mass timber. Greater than half the initiatives on this itinerary had been engineered by one agency — Dunning Thornton — whose timber specialist Alistair Cattanach has gathered a major report of innovation. With each architects and engineers, the circle is fortunately widening, and there have been makes an attempt to generate repeatable, cost-effective options, most notably the Pres- Lam programs developed by the Structural Timber Innovation Firm, based mostly on analysis carried out on the College of Canterbury. However the expertise stays sluggish to filter down, largely remaining confined to high-profile buildings with bold designers and adventurous purchasers.
The folks at Irving Smith Architects, New Zealand’s most constant innovators with mass timber, have described the problem of mass timber structure as being one in all “T-shirts vs ball robes”. They level out that almost all examples of our timber structure up to now have been civic, institutional and company buildings, during which architects and engineers have been given the finances and design freedom to do one thing particular — ball robes. Their argument is that we have to develop programs and strategies that can permit mass timber for use within the strange business and residential buildings that make up the on a regular basis bulk of our cities and cities – T-shirts. “The problem,” Jeremy Smith says, “is to get extra timber into extra buildings, no more timber into chosen buildings.”
We’re seeing such T-shirt buildings seem. Irving Smith’s personal WallÉ (2022) presents an method to small business buildings that addresses the problems that often make such initiatives so dire — hearth, daylight and air flow. RTA Studio’s Dwelling Home (2025) prototype in Rotorua deploys CLT slabs to extend development pace and scale back prices. Studio Pacific Structure’s Hangar 4 (2025) for Air New Zealand in Auckland is hardly a T-shirt however hopefully it alerts the growth of mass timber in infrastructural initiatives which might be presently the unique protect of metal and concrete.
Daring designers with wellresourced purchasers are more likely to proceed to prepared the ground. The problem for the broader career is to comply with shut behind, repeating and rationalising programs to allow their use in on a regular basis buildings to the extent that they are often adopted as trade normal. In doing so, we are able to all contribute to the required evolution of the way in which we construct.
THE ITINERARY
1. 2009 – NMIT Arts & Media Constructing
61 Nile Avenue, Nelson Irving Smith Jack Architects
This challenge was the successful entry in a government-sponsored competitors to encourage using structural timber in multi-storey development. The design included College of Canterbury analysis that led to the world’s first use of seismic, post-tensioned timber shear partitions. Nevertheless, the constructing itself serves as an academic software, establishing a precedent for environmentally delicate timber development. The challenge attracted a stack of nationwide and worldwide awards, together with for its timber and engineering improvements. Refer Structure NZ Might/June 2011.
2. 2012 – Te Ara Hihiko, Massey College
Wallace Avenue, Wellington Athfield Architects
Constructed for the School of Artistic Arts, this challenge employed the world’s first multistorey, post-tensioned timber body. This enables the construction to rock in an earthquake however return to place with minimal injury. The LVL body and the metal mechanics of the posttensioned system are uncovered on the inside and, unusually, on the outside. Positioned on a posh landform and offering a cross-campus circulation route, the construction as an entire is a hybrid — the timber body rests on an embedded concrete plinth. The challenge obtained quite a few awards, together with an NZIA Nationwide Award in 2014. Refer Structure NZ Aug/Sept 2012.
3. 2014 – Merritt Constructing
134 Victoria Avenue, Christchurch Sheppard & Rout
As with NMIT and Te Ara Hihiko, this challenge employed structural expertise developed at Canterbury College (UC). Supposed to behave as an environment friendly, reproducible timber structural system, equal to concrete or metal in price and appropriate for on a regular basis business buildings, the expertise was developed by UC’s Structural Timber Innovation Firm. The system employed cables inside the timber beams and energy-dissipating metal fittings to minimise injury and permit fast reoccupation after seismic occasions. This three-storey constructing homes retail areas {and professional} places of work and was the winner of an NZIA Native Award in 2015. See Progressive Constructing August 2015.
4. 2016 – Cathedral Grammar Junior Faculty
2 Chester Avenue West, Christchurch Andrew Barrie Lab and Tezuka Architects
Massive timber buildings usually depend on intensive use of metal to transmit masses by means of joints, the place stresses are at their most. To cut back prices and complexity, this challenge made use of timber-to-timber joints. These old-school partial lap joints wanted to suit very tightly to attain the required structural stiffness and so required a really excessive degree of accuracy from the timber milling course of: ±0.5mm on components as much as 12m lengthy at a time when ±5mm was typical. The challenge gathered design and engineering awards, together with the NZIA Ted McCoy Award for Training in 2018. See Structure NZ Sept/Oct 2016.
5. 2016 – Mount Nice Neighborhood Centre
3 McCormacks Bay Highway, Christchurch Chris Moller Structure + Urbanism
Constructed to interchange a neighborhood centre misplaced within the 2010–2011 earthquakes, this challenge employs LVL in a singular manner — as skinny sheets to generate an origami-like pleated construction. Such kinds had been a favorite of the modernists — pleats make skinny planes inflexible — however this construction required using very Twenty first-century digital design and fabrication strategies to create the metal and timber joints. The geometry sits over a tripartite planning association — a big ‘atrium’ with a double-height multi-purpose house to at least one aspect and a stack of help areas, together with a café, to the opposite. See Structure NZ March/April 2018.
6. 2019 – Nelson Airport Terminal
Trent Drive, Nelson Studio Pacific Structure
Given the encircling business forests and the presence on the town of CLT and LVL fabricators, it isn’t stunning Nelson has turn into a centre for innovation in mass timber. Prefabricated in a close-by plane hangar, the constructing obtained quite a few awards, together with the NZIA’s Sir Miles Warren Award for Industrial Structure in 2020. The awards jury said: “As one enters the terminal, tall, naked timber columns draw the gaze up in direction of the faceted, triangulated timber ceiling and underside of the roofscape: a composition that showcases native experience in timber fabrication.” See Structure NZ March/April 2020.
7. 2020 – Te Whare Nui o Tuteata
Longmile Highway, Rotorua RTA Studio and Irving Smith Architects
Constructed for the nationwide analysis institute that gives scientific help to our forestry trade, the Scion Timber Innovation Hub was one other challenge explicitly supposed to showcase the potential of timber. Workplace, exhibition and hospitality areas are wrapped round a triple-height atrium. The implausibly slender LVL diagrid vertical construction was made attainable by the event of all-timber joints which align stresses with timber grain, maximising the timber’s power. Small replaceable metal ‘fuses’ on the connections take in stresses generated by extreme earthquakes. See Structure NZ March/April 2021.
8. 2022 – WallÉ 96
Collingwood Avenue, Nelson Irving Smith Architects
A part of a long-running collection of ISA initiatives that make use of mass timber buildings in ‘on a regular basis’ business buildings, WallÉ offers cleverly with the design constraints typical of central metropolis business buildings — significantly design-deadening hearth rules. The constructing occupies the complete web site, and the decrease half of the three-storey constructing — as much as balustrade degree of the center ground — is pre-cast concrete, offering full hearth safety. Above, a mass timber construction meets rules, gives amenity for occupants and ensures future improvement on adjoining websites received’t spoil issues. See Structure NZ Sept/Oct 2022.
9. 2023 – Te Whare Hononga
39 Vivian Avenue, New Plymouth Tennent Brown Architects
Constructed beside our oldest stone church, this challenge takes on the bold problem of each accommodating and representing the reconciliation between mana whenua and the church. It employs a structurally bold however poetically resonant reciprocal roof construction — no particular person member extends throughout the house, smaller members combining to attain the lengthy spans. Bestowing an NZIA Western Award in 2024, the jury said: “Stylistically and technically profitable, the true success of this challenge’s intention will solely be recognized with years of hui, wānanga and kōrero. However for now, maybe it succeeds just by beginning the dialogue.” See Structure NZ Nov/Dec 2024.
10. 2024 – 90 Devonport
90 Devonport Highway, Tauranga Warren and Mahoney
Leased as the brand new headquarters for Tauranga Metropolis Council, this eightstorey constructing was, at completion, the nation’s largest mass timber workplace constructing. A 6 Star Inexperienced Star design, the challenge is an instance of an more and more favoured method which doesn’t search a wholly timber construction however hybridises structural supplies, every doing what it’s good at — timber columns, beams and flooring coping with gravity, and metal braces resisting seismic masses. This enables for a less complicated, extra elegant and extra environment friendly construction: one which the architect supposed to turn into a repeatable business typology. See Structure NZ Sept/Oct 2022.
11. 2024 Ngā Mokopuna
42–50 Kelburn Parade, Wellington Tennent Brown Architects
Previously referred to as the ‘Dwelling Pā’, this challenge is the most important New Zealand challenge up to now to tackle the Dwelling Constructing Problem. Constructed for a big establishment accommodating Māori services on a decent city web site, it appears to understand the suite of ambitions presently going through New Zealand structure. It features a full array of sustainable programs, important carbon discount and cultural integration. On the challenge’s core is an LVL and CLT construction, notable for the durability required for a multistorey constructing to fulfill the seismic masses generated by a fault line situated only a stone’s throw away. See Structure NZ Jan/Feb 2024
12. 2025 – The Court docket Theatre
129 Gloucester Avenue, Christchurch Haworth Tompkins and Athfield Architects
Residence to the final surviving home-based skilled theatre – that’s, having all manufacturing services in a single constructing – this challenge is a collaboration between London-based theatre specialists Haworth Tompkins and locals Athfield Architects. Housing two auditoria and administration, manufacturing and help areas, this constructing is a structural hybrid, combining metal, concrete and timber structural programs to deal with complicated spatial, acoustic and technical necessities. Its mass timber construction is boldly expressed within the dynamic triple-height lobby – described by Dorita Hannah as “not not like a neighborhood pub”. See Structure NZ Sept/Oct 2025.
13. 2025 – Hangar 4
14 Laurence Stevens Drive, Auckland Studio Pacific Structure
This challenge is a groundbreaking instance of mass timber being employed past the bounds of business and institutional buildings. The constructing follows a structurally environment friendly geometry, and self-supporting ETFE pillow roofing additional decreased the bodily construction required. The massive trusses, which mix components of LVL and CLT, had been manufacturing unit assembled in sections, joined collectively flat on the bottom, after which rotated up into place by New Zealand’s largest crawler crane. Regardless of being constructed from mass timber quite than from spidery steelwork, the completed constructing is extremely elegant. See Structure NZ Jan/Feb 2026.
14. 2026 – Fisher & Paykel World HQ
830 Nice South Highway, Auckland RTA Studio
Nonetheless beneath development, this campus will embody services for parking and equipment prototyping labs, however it’s the flagship ‘residence’ constructing, which can home administration, analysis and design capabilities, that can little question be the main target of consideration. Extending the method taken with Scion’s timber diagrid system, the constructing’s curving exterior partitions are made up of a diagrid with a simplified net joint, with the flooring and roof made up of CLT slabs. Enjoyable truth: it should take the New Zealand forestry trade solely three hours to develop the wooden used within the constructing. See Structure NZ Might/June 2023.
Different addresses
2012 – Carterton Occasions Centre
50 Holloway Avenue, Carterton WSP Structure
2014 – Te Kura Whare
12 Tuhoe Avenue, Taneatua Jasmax
2017 – He Tohu
70 Molesworth Avenue, Wellington Studio Pacific Structure
2021 – Ōpuke Thermal Swimming pools & Spa
35 Mount Hutt Station Highway, Methven Sheppard and Rout
2021 – Brandon Home
149 Featherston Avenue, Wellington Studio Pacific Structure
2022 – HomeGround
Hobson Avenue, AucklandStevens Lawson
2023 – Tuhiraki – AgResearch Lincoln Facility
21 Ellesmere Junction Highway, Lincoln Architectus
2023 – Inexperienced Faculty New Zealand – Kina
406 Koru Highway, Koru Boon
2024 – AUT Tukutuku
90 Akoranga Drive, Northcote, Auckland Jasmax See Structure NZ Jan/Feb 2025
2024 – Te Whare Whakatere Ashburton Library and Civic Centre
221 Baring Sq. East, Ashburton Athfield Architects See Structure NZ July/August 2025
Sources
The initiatives on this itinerary have all obtained important protection in our native architectural press, however most are new sufficient that few have obtained protection in ebook type. Aaron Betsky’s Unfinished & Far Far Away: The Structure of Irving Smith Architects (Barcelona: Altrim, 2023) offers in-depth protection of ISA’s innovation in mass timber, finding the follow in its Nelson context. The Christchurch buildings are all included in Freerange Press’ Shifting Foundations: Publish-quake Structure of Ōtautahi Christchurch (Christchurch: Freerange Press, 2023). Amelia Melbourne-Hayward’s article entitled ‘Shiver me timbers’, revealed on ArchitectureNow in 2015, offers a succinct account of the state of play at the moment, together with the structural improvements rising from the College of Canterbury. Followers of our mass timber buildings would do properly to check our lengthy historical past of timber buildings, significantly timber gothic church buildings and elaborate assembly homes. Each varieties are properly lined, together with many others, in Historic Buildings of New Zealand: North Island (Auckland: Cassell, 1979).
The Itinerary collection is supported by Dulux Colors of New Zealand. Dulux Color Specialist Davina Harper has chosen a Colors of New Zealand palette based mostly on this itinerary. See the complete vary and order color samples right here.
