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

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