Global architectural software firm Graphisoft has honoured the technological capabilities of New Zealand architects Patterson Associates by designating the firm’s Len Lye Centre design as its global Signature Building for 2016.

It is the first time the software company’s Signature Building has been awarded to a New Zealand building.

The Len Lye Centre, which opened last year in New Plymouth, is New Zealand’s only museum dedicated to a single artist, and the design has also been selected as a finalist in the 2016 World Architecture Festival to be held in Berlin in November.

The design, construction and completion of the Centre required deep real-time communication and collaboration between all the project stakeholders using Graphisoft’s state-of-the-art building information modelling (BIM) system, ArchiCAD 20.

Pattersons Associates commented that completing the entire project was only possible through a highly collaborative process involving architects, specifiers, engineers, builders and other sub-contractors working on a 3D BIM model.

Director Andrew Mitchell said BIM modelling in ArchiCAD provides every stakeholder with accurate, easily accessible information, which was communicable in a visual, yet highly accurate way.

“By pairing ArchiCAD with its accompanying BIMx app, project data was available instantly wherever the builder or engineer was because the 3D files and documentation could be accessed from a smart device on-site,” he said.

Graphisoft’s selectors praised Patterson Associates’ resolution of the building’s multiple requirements: “It needed to integrate with a proposed new art and cultural precinct, and it also needed to seamlessly merge with an existing heritage art gallery facility in a converted movie theatre. The finished building also introduces new gallery spaces, education studios, a 62-seat cinema, the Len Lye Archive and a dedicated motor room for his kinetic works.”

The selectors described Patterson Associate’s design as creating a space that is “reverential, creating a sensory experience from light as a temple for art”.

Mitchell said the selection of the Len Lye Centre was a great honour for everybody involved in the design and delivery of the building.