The Auckland Architecture Association has once again held its Unbuilt Architecture Awards celebrating the work of architects, graduates and students. The awards were held over three categories – Open Work in Progress, Open Conceptual and Student – and received 125 submissions. The winners from each category were finally chosen from a short list of 38 entries. The judges for this year’s awards were: Pip Cheshire, Lindley Naismith and Dominic Glamuzina.

Prior to the awards ceremony and accompanying exhibition of works, architect Pip Cheshire gave a lecture on Auckland’s unbuilt architecture.

The awards went to:

Open Work in Progress category
Winner - RTA Studio for Mackelvie Street Office and Carpark
Runner Up - Nick Roberts for Arapai House

In making their decision, the judges noted: “An existing urban form and material motif is used as a catalyst for the regeneration of under utilised service space. The building successfully completes a collection of others by the same architect to further reinforce a network of laneways, courtyards and connections. The building proposed is a strongly enclosing wall to an existing nascent courtyard and thus completes a comprehensive masterplan for the precinct. The project makes the most of a sole property owner to add to the liveliness and commercial activity of the street, block and neighbourhood.”

Open Conceptual category
Winner - Terèse Fitzgerald for A Boutique Pataka
Runner Up - Jonathan A. Gibb for The Box Chapel
Highly Commended - Jonathan A. Gibb for No. 8 Wire
Highly Commended - Liam James McRoberts for The New Villa
Highly Commended - Olivia Manusauloa for Agricultural Waterway

In choosing A Boutique Pataka, the judges commended the fresh approach to a Kiwi icon: “A collection of found materials are used to make a coastal totem to house that most ubiquitous of kiwi institutions, the fish and chip shop with the living quarters above. The building has the tracery of a three dimensional drawing and scavenges the tractors, trailers and boats from the beach to reference the idiosyncrasies and peculiarities of this most robust site and create a specific identity for the remote community. As a tower it challenges the horizontality of traditional New Zealand seaside settlement.

Student category
Winner - Holly Yumeng Xie for Vanishing Acts
Runner Up - Anthea Du for Resisting Equilibrium through Bio-chemical Synthesis
Highly Commended - Sean Wijanto for Rethinking the Vertical City
Highly Commended - Amber Ruckes for Waikohu: a story of Whenua in contemporary NZ Architecture
Highly Commended - Zee Shake Lee for Invisible architecture + my own sky

The judges were wowed by the intricacy of the imagined landscape created by Holly Yumeng Xie and her ability to use architectural media to convey her message. “A series of exquisitely made models and beautifully crafted drawings create a narrative that links eighteen stations each one designed to contain “the detritus of discarded identity”. These are located in and access the history of a remote and contested sub Antarctic island. The project suggests a universe of subtlety and complexity and which evokes the speculations on other worlds and imagined occupations described by Italo Calvino. This is a tour de force of architectural exploration through the traditional architectural media that utilise the creative strength of the thinking hand.”