Avondale College wins National Institute of Architecture Award
As one of 28 winners announced at the NZIA awards ceremony hosted on Friday 30 October, we’re extremely proud to
congratulate Avondale College and the project and contractor teams, who dedicated four years to making this exciting
three-stage development a success.
One of the largest school rebuilding programmes in New Zealand’s history, a study of the internal performance
temperature of the classrooms within Avondale College concludes the newly built thermomass classrooms are 2.8 degrees
warmer*.
Working closely with an integrated Jasmax architecture and landscape architecture team, and dedicated contractor team,
the design has “Deploy[ed] the language of an urban street, the arrangement of confident buildings and courtyards, which
are given texture and interest via textured concrete formwork and coloured plywood paneling, [it] must surely energise
and affirm its pupils each day.” - NZIA Citation
The Board’s vision to create a modern, future-focused and cohesive campus came to fruition over a four year period.
Directly raising funds for certain initiatives within the design, the project has succeeded in creating an urban
streetscape within an interconnected campus. Find out more about the design here.
Sustainable initiatives were integrated throughout the 92 new and refurbished teaching and resource spaces. Professor
Bin Su of UNITEC has already completed and published a first paper on the internal temperature performance of thermomass
(or heavy weight construction) in classrooms during winter. He compared heavy weight, lightweight and prefab classrooms
at the school. The conclusion is that these classrooms are 2.8 degrees warmer* than the insulated light weight structure
classrooms.
“A multi-stage redevelopment of a large secondary school has produced an outstanding new learning environment that meets
contemporary needs while keeping continuity with the school’s particular pedagogical legacy. The school may have lost
its old buildings, but it has kept its heart. This is a school designed for kids; although it retains its traditional
character and classroom organisation, it is not regimented or patronising – deliberately, there is scope for random
movement along its streetscapes. All spaces are treated as rooms of their own, and are pleasingly proportioned. The
school is robust and purposeful; the drama of movement is especially evident in the big central courtyard funded, as
were many of the school’s sustainability features, above and beyond standard Ministry of Education provisions by a Board
ambitious for students’ progress in education and early life.” - NZIA Judges’ Citation
ends