Te Ngākau - Civic Center
Te Ngākau involved unpacking the sites natural and cultural history while weaving in a visionary future for Te Whanganui-A-Tara.
CLIENT : WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL
LOCATION : TE-WHANGANUI-A-TARA (WELLINGTON), NZ
PLOT : 74635M2
YEAR : 2023
TYPE : MIXED USE - PUBLIC PROGRAMME
SCOPE : CONCEPT DESIGN / VISION
In response to Wellington City Council's call for proposals, Te Ngākau emerged as a collaboration between Differential and POU Architecture.
The proposal strategically addresses existing challenges within the civic centre, addressing issues of visual permeability, convoluted multi-level operations, and confusing wayfinding resulting from decommissioned structures.
Te Ngākau envisions a transformation of the site into the beating heart of Wellington CBD, serving as a dynamic and iconic link between the city and the waterfront. Seamlessly bridging Courtney Place and the Lambton Quay business district.
The project team devised a simple framework to organise the programme that was inspired by the Kawakawa leaf & the Looper moth - both indigenous to Aotearoa NZ.
The site was analysed across various environmental & contextual criteria to ground the project and provide a foundation for data-driven design.
The Kawakawa (multi-objective) framework, based on a series of positive and negative "ions" iterated through thousands of layout options while considering environmental, contextual, heritage and economic dimensions.
With insights into the sites environmental performance, the optimised mass was further refined based on six strategic architectural and urban planning gestures.
Project team
Esekia Faiga, POU Architecture
Dylan Majurey, POU Architecture
Krishna Duddumpudi, Differential
Piotr Klushinsky, Differential
Brad Dobson, BLAC.
David Hakaria
Mark Wilson
Get in touch to talk about optimizing your project
LET'S CHAT
