A café on Auckland’s North Shore has taken out the supreme award at the 2013 ADNZ Resene Architectural Design Awards.

Constructed from four shipping containers, Long Bay Showroom and Café by Cameron Cotton of Cubular was named best architectural design from 130 entries across New Zealand.

General manager of ADNZ Astrid Andersen says the judges were delighted to see an entry which tackles the housing affordability crisis.

“This design is robust, environmentally sustainable, energy efficient, affordable and re-locatable. It is also beautifully designed and constructed. The industrial nature of the shipping containers has been embraced, left unclad and painted with heavy duty matt black container paint. It is a beautiful mix of solid, ribbed, robust steel combined with smooth, translucent glass. ADNZ encourages all of its designers to look at solutions to New Zealand’s building problems – particularly designs which are as simple and as elegant as this one.”

Judges of the ADNZ Resene Architectural Design Awards were Duncan Joiner, Tony van Raat and Italian architect Caterina Steiner. Judges said of the Long Bay Showroom + Café, “This building reflects the systems approach, to the procurement of buildings, is essential in situations like the Christchurch rebuild, where large numbers of buildings were needed in a hurry. These buildings can be factory prefabricated and moved onto site. This building ended up looking far, far better than you would expect the assemblage of containers to look.”

The ADNZ Resene Architectural Design Awards were held in Dunedin at a gala awards dinner on 27 September. The awards recognise successful design in residential and commercial architecture across a range of categories including new homes, multi-unit dwellings, interiors, alterations and additions and industrial design.

In addition to the supreme award winner, six designers from across the country were awarded national awards for their designs.

• Kris Wilson of Design House Architecture Ltd won the Residential Compact New Home up to 150sqm award – sponsored by Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. 
• The Residential New Home between 150sqm and 300sqm award – sponsored by Gerard Roofs – went to Brynn McCauley of BMC Design Ltd. 
• Christchurch architectural designer Cymon Allfrey of Cymon Allfrey Architects took out the Residential New Home over 300sqm award – sponsored by James Hardie. 
• Diana Blake of Diana Blake Design won the Residential Interiors Architectural Design award. 
• The Residential Alterations & Additions Architectural Design award went to Mark McLeay and Daniel Eiem of Creative Arch. 
• Tane Cox of Red Architecture won the best Commercial Interior award – sponsored by GIB.