Two new buildings, designed by Stevens Lawson Architects, have been officially opened recently at Iona College, a Presbyterian girls̓ school set in a semi-rural landscape in Havelock North, Hawke’s Bay.

The Iona College Information Resource Centre (IRC) building is a multifunctional education facility, incorporating a library, an English department and a technology suite.

Externally, the gable-roofed IRC building has a strong relationship with the form and scale of the adjacent heritage buildings – built circa 1913 when the school was established – but with a contemporary architectural language. Cedar cladding forms vertical lines down the main façade and flows under the soffit of a recessed main entrance. The vertical lines are replicated with a series of concrete columns at intervals around the building, forming a distinctive grid pattern which effectively contrasts the cedar cladding and black joinery.

The architects have devised an internal planning strategy that incorporates ideas of watering holes (social areas), campfires (group learning) and caves (study), and is composed of a series of circular forms located with an open, free-form space, revealing an unexpected juxtaposition to the building’s exterior.

The second building to be completed is the Blyth Performing Arts Centre, which sits among many trees on a gentle slope near the entrance to Iona College; its strong sculptural form creates a public gesture of welcome.

Here, Stevens Lawson has adopted a language of sinuous curves and angled planes, drawing from the shapes of musical instruments and the folded landscape forms of the neighbouring Te Mata Hills.

Inside, the 400-seater concert chamber is a generous and elegant room featuring an asymmetrical curved ceiling, a perimeter balcony and generous natural light.