Overview
Entrant:
Context
Category:
02. Interior Design Award
Photographed by:
Alasdair Hood
Key team members:
Architecture: Alasdair Hood – Principal & Project Lead, Peter Quenault – Technical Lead
Project Manager: TSA
Building Contractor: Youngman and Son
Timberwork and cabinetry: East Joinery
NZR Co is a mid-century building with historical significance. Standing derelict for more than a decade following the Canterbury earthquakes of 2011, the refurbishment was completed in 2025. The building has contributed to the ongoing gentrification of the CBD’s northeast corner, an area slow to rebuild.
Where possible, the restoration expressed the base building structure and features. This introduced a raw, grittiness that has added considerable texture to interior spaces. The introduction of smoother, refined materials included plasterboard and hard plaster, tiles and timber.
Base Building
The use of timber was an integral part of the building’s interior aesthetic, introducing warmth and refinement as a counterpoint to the concrete, steel and terrazzo of the existing structure. Except for the repurposed salvage timber (see below), a single species was used throughout. Drawing on the original building’s mid-century Scandinavian design roots, the preference was a mid to light-toned timber. Species including birch and larch – plentiful in Scandinavia – are hard to procure in New Zealand. Ultimately, FSC certified American White Oak was selected for its tone, grain and availability.
The budget necessitated that timber be used sparingly but strategically. In the base building it lines a wall in the entry lobby, the tenant corridors and stairwell access doors on each level and is used as a cap for dado-height tiling in bathrooms. In every instance, care has been taken in the detailing, accentuating the distinction between raw and refined.
Salvaged from the ceiling of the penthouse, where sections were too damaged to restore, profiled Matai boards were reimagined as wall lights and installed in the building’s stairwells. The dark timber, re-stained to draw out the rich grain of the old wood, add a touch of character to otherwise utilitarian spaces.
Fitout Example
Tenant fitouts take cues from the base building’s use of timber. In Context’s studio, a pair of applications explore the material with different approaches.
The meeting room wall is a study in simple but considered detailing with emphasis on grain direction and junctions. The wall is treated with the refinement afforded a piece of cabinetry. Reeded glass, and laminate panels on the inside elevation compliment the oak.
Serving two important functions, the entry wall is treated with equal care, but the approach is completely different. Adapting a free-standing wall system, the back-of-house side provides generous, reconfigurable storage while the entry elevation is faced with oak panels, carefully detailed to integrate with the proprietary structure. The free-standing nature of the wall system meant a very clean appearance was achieved with no bracing required to the ceiling. To satisfy seismic design requirements proprietary foot plates are required around the base and remained visible. A custom skirting was designed using a combination of composite panel with matching oak trim to disguise the structural element in an unapologetic, intentional way, grounding the wall in the space. The effect is one of permanence, equivalent to the meeting room wall but with the flexibility to be relocated in the future.