Green School NZ Wins Second Western Architecture Award & top timber design award.
Green School New Zealand has won the Western Architecture Award for a second time, see the details of our latest win below.
Located on the outskirts of New Plymouth, a large Kina, Stage 2 of Green School, is nestled among thousands of native trees at the base of Mt Taranaki looking out to the ocean. The Kina form is celebrated with an organic, circular shape to create a safe and nurturing learning environment, with classrooms all opening to a shared central play space. A timber structure, driven piles, material selection and emphasis on insulation and ventilation systems ensure the building mirrors the environmental values the school is modelled on. The Kina patterning features throughout internal spaces, with timber acoustic panelling shaping the circular interior.
Green School New Zealand’s first Western Architecture Win details below.
An extremely tight programme drove an extraordinary collaborative effort between client, architect, structural engineer and the local construction industry. Necessity was the mother of invention: design decisions were guided by what the industry could deliver and building information modelling and off-site fabrication was used to maximise delivery times and minimise material wastage. The quality of the Green School’s architecture achieved in just under a year, with three ‘waka’ classrooms and surrounding landscaping established on site, is impressive. The distinctive tensile fabric learning vessels were inspired by eel nets and provide the school with a clearly identifiable brand. Inside, the use of timber, and palpable sense of craft, impart a soothing quality to the single learning space. It will be interesting to see how this school develops and how the ‘waka’ classrooms facilitate a brave new world of learning.
Green School NZ Kina, Wins top timber design award at the NZ Timber Design Awards!
Green School NZ Kina, was awarded the top timber design award at the NZ Timber Design Awards. These Awards recognise and celebrate the engineers, architects, architectural designers and builders who push boundaries and continue to champion nature’s greatest renewable building material, timber. “Green School was a clear winner,” according to the judging panel, “demonstrating the beauty, efficiency and sustainability of timber.” According to the school, the timber structure, driven piles, material selection and emphasis on insulation and ventilation systems “ensures the building mirrors the environmental values the school is modelled on.”