Last night was the big night out for New Zealand’s design community with 600 designers (and Mayor Len Brown) converging on Auckland’s Viaduct Event centre for the Best Awards. The number of designers in attendance almost equalled the number of entries, but in the end the 812 entries were pared back to reveal just five Purple Pin winners – the main awards for each sector of design – and a bullion market’s worth of gold and silver. Two Black Pins, awards that honour people who have made exceptional contributions, were also distributed. The John Britten Black Pin, given to an individual who has made a major contribution to design, went to Fisher & Paykel industrial designer Mark Elmore. The Black Pin for Outstanding Achievement went to Fraser Gardyne, principal of graphic design company GardyneHolt and past president and a Fellow of the Designers Institute of New Zealand.

In the spatial category, the big architecture winners on the night were Warren and Mahoney and Studio Pacific for The Rock – the extension at Wellington International Airport (you can read about that project here and here). Those designers also won a Gold Pin in the Public and Institutional Spaces category. In the graphic field, the judges couldn’t make their minds up between two outstanding projects, so made life easy for themselves by awarding both. One graphic Purple Pin went to Alt Group for “The Social Kitchen”, which was produced for Fisher & Paykel. Talented designers Sarah Maxey and Kris Sowersby (with non-attendee Kate Camp) took the other for “Sentimental Journey”. In the interactive design section of the programe, Resn took out this year’s Purple Pin for Sponsafier 4, and in the product design field Auckland-based Avanti Design Technology took home the Purple Pin for the Avanti Project Evo II, which hit the market last month.

As always, the most enjoyment aside from seeing who won what was in seeing who won the most. Alongside its Purple Pin, Alt Group took home 23 awards and, as usual, and despite the chaos caused by the earthquakes, Christchurch-based Strategy continued its outstanding record in this awards programme by picking up four Gold Pins, five silver and 11 bronze awards. Cheshire Architects picked up gold for two Britomart, Auckland bar designs, 1885 and the Britomart Country Club. Retail design specialist Gascoigne Associates also picked up a number of Gold Pins, including one for “Clothes Hangar”, although in a strange turn of events it appeared that Gascoigne’s name was not included on the entry of this winning project, leading to a spontaneous moment of onstage clarification by a member of the Gascoigne team. Other oddities included no Gold Pin being awarded in the residential category, with MC Dai Henwood stated that this was due to a lack of entries in this particular category.

For a full wrap of all the winners head along to the Best Awards website.