Even in our image-saturated world, the aerial photos of Punakaiki’s new visitor centre Punangairi are undeniably spectacular. Nestled within the subtropical rainforest of Paparoa National Park and topped by a living roof, Sheppard & Rout’s design both blends into and contrasts with the natural surrounds of Dolomite Point and the nearby Pancake Rocks like a spaceship in camouflage.

The journey to Punakaiki from both the north and the south winds along a coastline of raw nature. As you round the bend into Dolomite Point, your first glimpse of Punangairi is a forest of vertical columns set amongst established nīkau, topped with a slim aluminium-clad barge. Peeking over the top of this glistening barge are the hints of the green roof so visible in aerial photography, with nīkau and the bush-clad hills beyond.

Punangairi — named to correct the misspelling of Punakaiki that has perpetuated since the mid-1800s¹ — is a visitor centre shared by local rūnanga Ngāti Waewae and the Department of Conservation (DOC) to welcome the estimated half-million annual visitors to the Pancake Rocks and surrounds. While various Paparoa National Park visitor centre designs have been prepared and shelved over recent decades, this project was initiated by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Waewae, who had a desire to host manuhiri and share their stories. Together, the partners secured funding from the Provincial Growth Fund in 2018, alongside broader tourism initiatives at Dolomite Point. With this funding in place, the project was awarded to Christchurch-based Sheppard & Rout to continue earlier work undertaken by Boffa Miskell and Tennent Brown Architects.

Jasper van der Lingen of Sheppard & Rout explains that the original brief called for a 1200m² building sited in place of the significantly smaller original Paparoa National Park Visitor Centre and extending over the surrounding virgin bush. An adjacent flat lawn used extensively by visitors was viewed as sacrosanct and was to remain untouched.

On a visit to this former visitor centre, van der Lingen notes that they were struck by the view out the back-office window into the crowns of adjacent nīkau. While the visitor centre was firmly grounded at the road edge, this view into fronds and not trunks was the result of the landscape dropping steeply away below the centre into a doline or tomo. The wider landscape is pitted with these dolines infilled with dense bush.

With a desire to minimise the impact on the surrounding virgin bush, Sheppard & Rout challenged the briefed requirements and proposed to build upon the available open and flat space — the treasured lawn. Dancing around the edges of the surrounding dolines, the curved plan of the visitor centre emerged. This move responded to pragmatic considerations, such as enabling the DOC Visitor Centre to remain in operation while the new complex was constructed and not needing to infill or build over the deep hollows of the dolines. Also, it allows visitors to look out into the established bush and understand better the landscape they are inhabiting.

As you enter through the steel-clad wind lobby, you are greeted by the warmth of a timber-filled interior, with light entering from all sides. The layering of nīkau, external colonnade, glulam columns and steel cross-bracing filters the light; above, the gently lifting ceiling of timber dowel provides a sense of shelter and warmth. Paving patterns by Kamo Marsh and artworks by Fayne Robinson (Kāti Māmoe, Kai Tahu, Ngāti Apa Ki Te Rā Tō, Ngāti Porou), such as the sweeping stainless-steel pull-handles on the entrance doors, provide some reference to Ngāti Waewae’s involvement in the building but the overarching architecture is not responding to a specific cultural narrative nor is it informed by co-design.

At a shared counter, both DOC rangers and hosts from the Paparoa Experience (by Ngāti Waewae) receive manuhiri, with retail similarly shared throughout the open floor plan. The roof lifts to the north, where a café and upstairs meeting space open out into views of the nīkau crowns, while the all-important public toilets are located to the south and accessible 24 hours a day.

The full programme was not able to be accommodated within the curved form, and so, via an air-bridge-type structure, the building extends to the east of the main building to an existing clearing where a green-roofed black box containing Paparoa Experience is housed. While the purpose of this space is to explain the history and geology of the Paparoa National Park through a Ngāti Waewae lens, at the discretion of exhibition designers Gibson Group, windows along the bridge have been covered. This disconnects visitors from the actual surrounding context of bush, dolines and manu that would otherwise be visible.

The visitor centre is predominantly enclosed with full-height glazing. This extent of glazing could easily have felt out of place but it is set behind a colonnade of sorts, wrapping the eastern and western faces. This colonnade is formed of full-height circular timber columns, closely mirroring the proportions and slenderness of the surrounding nīkau trunks. While doing little, if anything, structurally, these are critical to soften the edges of an otherwise rather large commercial building. Their presence also assists in the mitigation of bird strike, notably of the tāiko or Westland petrel, which nests only in the hills above the visitor centre.

From within the main space, the living roof is again glimpsed as it extends over the lowered bridge roof. The inclusion of a living roof is representative of the conundrum of sustainable buildings. There is no questioning its symbolism but the typical benefits of living roofs, such as reduction in heat-island effect and stormwater retention, are of negligible benefit in Punangairi’s context. Granted, there could be an argument for additional biodiversity but this is a rounding error in a 430km² national park. Much was made of the building’s carbon credentials in earlier press on the project² but, as structural engineer on the project Rob Lane of Lewis Bradford Consulting notes, the inclusion of a living roof is broadly equivalent to installing a concrete roof on a single-storey building.³ This building is close to the Alpine Fault and, had this living roof been replaced with a lightweight roof, it would, undoubtedly, have had smaller timber roof beams, less steel cross-bracing and, consequently, reduced global-warming potential.⁴

This aside, Punangairi is an undoubted success, welcoming and hosting manuhiri in Punakaiki in a unique and grounded way. The partnership between Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Waewae and the Department of Conservation seen here is a potential example for the creation of the assets that Aotearoa desperately needs to host ever-increasing tourist numbers. Sheppard & Rout’s architecture, here, is a robust contextual response, sensitively inserted into an exceptional natural setting. Architecturally, it stands its ground with comparable visitor centres internationally.*

^{*Editor’s comment: The last line of this review differs slightly from the original text published in Architecture NZ magazine. Sheppard & Rout’s client, the Department of Conservation (DOC), is concerned that there may have been a misunderstanding regarding Ngāti Waewae’s involvement throughout the design process. On behalf of DOC, Phil Rossiter says “Ngāti Waewae was deeply involved from the outset in the co-design of the project, having input and sign-off through every design step and iteration over many years. Ngāti Waewae’s stories and presence start with the two pou either end of Dolomite Point, continue with wayfinding, artworks and cultural etchings, are enshrined in the large kowhaiwhai patterning and building name (Punangairi) adorning the front of the building, and ultimately come to life through the Paparoa Experience, a multi-media expression of the cultural and natural stories of Paparoa.”}

^{Rossiter also pointed out that the key driver in the project’s living roof was landscape (visual) mitigation. “Punangairi sits in an Outstanding Natural Landscape and a ‘Scenically-Sensitive Zone’ (based on the district plan). Ensuring the visual impact of the building was mitigated was very important (essential for consenting purposes), especially with a nature walk and viewing platform on the hillside behind that looks down onto and over the buildings, and a living roof using locally sourced and propagated plants was a key mitigation in this. This is why it is valued, not because of its symbolism.”}

References

^{1 thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360516822/punakaiki-or-punangairi-name-we-have-all-got-wrong/
2 architecturenow.co.nz/articles/dolomite-point-aims-for-double-carbon-zero/
3 Including saturated soil and mature plant growth, the green roof build-up weighs approximately 300kg/m². For context, a lightweight timber-framed membrane roof build-up could weigh approximately 50–75kg/m² and a 150mm-thick metal deck concrete slab could weigh approximately 250kg/m². 
4 LCA analysis by Sheppard & Rout estimates the building’s environmental impact at a respectable 930kgCO₂e/m2 (A1–A5, B1–B5, C1–C4 incl. sequestration). For comparison, the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge targets non-domestic buildings (new-build office) to achieve <970kgCO₂e/m2 by 2025 and <750kgCO₂e/m2 by 2030.}