Overview
Entrant:
Arthouse Architects
Category:
07. Sustainable Development Award
Photographed by:
Jason Mann
Key team members:
Arthouse Architects - Renée Williamson, Rachel Dodd, Jonathan Callaghan
Sheppard & Rout - Jasper van der Lingen, Ella van der Lingen
Structural & Building Services - Beca
Acoustics - Marshall Day
Communications - Torque IP
Motueka High School, founded in 1883, sits in a residential / semi- rural area and is the only High School in the area. Tāwhaki Nui-a-Hema is a 2-storey mass timber teaching block for the Ministry of Education, consisting of six teaching spaces.
The design is an evolution of two blocks that Arthouse in conjunction with Sheppard & Rout previously designed for Waimea College, however there are fundamental differences, and we have implemented lessons learned while maximising the efficiency of a mass timber structure for this typology in Aotearoa.
The use of mass timber was driven by sustainability, biophilia and connection to place. Timber is symbolic to the cultural narrative and historical aspects of the area, which was known to have large native forests. This connection to narrative enhances the public value, community identity and offers educational opportunities for the students who occupy it. Biophilic design is known to enhance wellbeing, which was a key reason for exposing timber both internally and externally. With a need for more sustainable government buildings, this project was part of the Ministry’s strategy looking at how government departments could deliver buildings that focused on carbon reduction as an initial step into sustainability. Overall, the building achieved excellent sustainability outcomes, with a sequestered biogenic carbon result of -196.6 kgCO2e/m².
The design significantly reduces embodied carbon upfront and over the whole-of-life of the building by prioritising timber-based materials over traditional high-carbon alternatives. Steel and concrete were substituted with timber-based materials, including CLT shear walls and lift shaft, LVL and Glulam beams and columns, locally manufactured Potius box beam floor & roof panels, Glulam T&G deck, and a timber batten & cradle acoustic floor system. These selections lower the reliance on high-carbon materials, significantly reducing emissions associated with steel production and concrete. An added benefit of using the Potius beams and T&G deck structure, meant that a safe work platform was achieved fast, and avoided the need for additional scaffolding in some areas, during construction.
The Ministry’s brief was to follow the ‘Waimea’ model, showing how it can be adapted to different situations. This repeatable design can easily be extruded or mirrored, whilst following the same grid set out and structure. Design adaptability for longevity was considered in the design of the CLT shear walls, which allow column-free spans, meaning most internal walls are non-structural. This meant the whole floor could operate as one large open-plan environment if the school’s pedagogy requires this. The flexibility in the design allows for future modifications without demolition and reconstruction, preventing material wastage and unnecessary embodied carbon emissions.
Educational projects play a key role in contributing to the community of Aotearoa as a whole. This project is aspirational in scope, looking at creating a building that embraces a new way of building multi-storey MoE projects with the use of timber on show. Local and New Zealand made products used included the Potius box beams, Abodo decking, Techlam and Red Stag engineered timber, Autex and many more, which helps to support the local economy.