We have the ser­i­ous hots for some of the archi­tects archi­tec­ture around town. Build­ings that not only func­tion as they were inten­ded but also make the streets a more excit­ing and pleas­ant place to be make us happy people.

Put on the Barry White because if this build­ing was a per­son, I would be mak­ing sweet sweet luuurve to it right now:

After the jump, we present the build­ings…

A. New Meridian head office (Kumutoto)

Yeah, it’s been giv­en the col­lect­ive group hump by all media out­lets lately due to its ‘green­ness’, but the fact that the Meridi­an build­ing prac­tices what they preach (being the only elec­tri­city sup­pli­er who only uses renew­able resources), that it max­im­ises its gor­geous water­front loc­a­tion AND adds to the over­all aes­thet­ic of the water­front makes us happy to join in that hump. Not only that, but the hungry and thirsty among us are look­ing for­ward to some extra spe­cial sur­prises on the ground floor.

B. The Department of Conservation Building on Manners St


It’s anoth­er green build­ing, of course, but what makes this extra green is that it recycles an old build­ing. Not only that, it man­aged to turn an embar­rass­ing remind­er of the archi­tec­tur­al excesses of the ’80s into some­thing cool and eleg­ant. To appre­ci­ate it, you really have to wander inside and exper­i­ence the light flow­ing through the atri­um and the spec­tac­u­lar stair­case. Add in a roof garden café and it’s hard not to envy those work­ing here.

C. Te Puni Kōkiri House


Who could res­ist the rip­p­li­cious 1930s-style flanks topped out with flat plates wrench­ing the eye to a halt among light spaces and green glass? We can­’t. And Hotere’s bril­liant and sub­vers­ive sculp­ture out front, a broken column seem­ing to por­tend the fail­ure of tem­por­al (and Pāke­hā?) power, is the icing on the cake.

WINNER!!!
D. Wellington Central Library

We love this as much for what it con­tains as for its admit­tedly beau­ti­ful struc­ture. Ian Ath­field’s design is still refus­ing to date after over a dec­ade, and it’s quite a shock to be reminded that post­mod­ern­ism was sup­posed to be about lan­guage, his­tory and humour rather than slap­ping cheap arches and columns on things.

E. “Boathouse” apartments and atrium at Chaffers Dock

If only all new apart­ment build­ings could be this light, crisp and lively. Subtle zig-zags and folds anim­ate the north­ern elev­a­tion, step­ping in and out just enough to stop it being an extruded lump, without going over­board and wacky. The atri­um is also an essay in light and angles, with slashes of sun­shine stream­ing from the roof and slender lean­ing columns bring­ing dynam­ism to the space. Now, if only some of the ground-floor ten­ants had lived up to the design chal­lenge…

For a handy map of where to see all these build­ings, use the “best­build­ing” tag on Zoom­In. Go and feast your eyes before vot­ing opens on Novem­ber 19.