Urban Design Award winners announced
Built Projects Award Winner - Wynyard Quarter Jellicoe Precinct, Auckland by Waterfront Auckland.
Envisaging Projects Award Winner - Auckland City Centre Masterplan 2012-13 by Built Environment Unit and City Transformation, Auckland Council.
Built Projects - Highly Commended. Wellington Waterfront by Wellington Waterfront Ltd.
Built Projects - Highly Commended. Iron Bank, Karangahape Road, Auckland by RTA Studio.
Built Projects - Highly Commended. Talbot Park Renewal Project, Glen Innes, Auckland by Boffa Miskell.
Envisaging Projects - Highly Commended. Blueprint for Christchurch by Blueprint 100 Team (Boffa Miskell, Sheppard + Rout Architects, Warren and Mahoney Architects, Populous, Woods Bagot, RCP).
The biennial awards programme celebrates urban design projects and high quality place-making in New Zealand’s towns and cities.
Winners of the inaugural New Zealand Urban Design Awards were announced at Auckland’s Viaduct Events Centre on 8 November, 2012.
Taking out the top honours were two Auckland projects: The Jellicoe Precinct at Wynyard Quarter, receiving the Built Projects Award, and the Auckland City Centre Masterplan 2012-13, accepting the Envisaging Projects Award (for projects that provide plans or frameworks for future development).
Of the Jellicoe Precinct, stage one of the development of Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter by Waterfront Auckland, the Awards jury commented: “Its primary success is the establishment of the street pattern and public spaces that give order and texture to the development to come. By layering the plan, the project has succeeded in both maintaining and interpreting the site’s history and providing new and exciting civic models for Auckland. Waterfront Auckland and its consultants, Architectus, and Taylor Cullity Leathlean and Wraight + Associates, are to be congratulated for the excellence of this urban project.”
Winner of the Envisaging Projects Award, the Auckland City Centre Masterplan 2012-13 produced by Auckland’s Council’s Built Environment Unit and City Transformation, was praised by the jury for “addressing the complex development, infrastructure and public realm issues at play in Auckland’s central areas in a new and innovative way.” Judges said: “A particular strength of the plan lies in the way it has re-imagined how the streets and public spaces in the central area could look and feel if there is a concerted effort to shift towards creating public spaces that will attract people rather than cars, and ones that will better support the increasingly diverse range of visitors, workers and residents using the city centre.”
Four additional projects were recognised with Highly Commended Awards: Wellington Waterfront, Iron Bank (Auckland) and the Talbot Park Renewal Project (Auckland) in the Built Projects category, and the Blueprint for Christchurch in the Envisaging Projects section of the programme.
