JTB Architects design spaces where New Zealanders can learn and work, innovate, live, age and grow. Our future commercial workplaces, industrial facilities, centres and hubs demand a specialised approach in how they are designed and built. We create leading architecture that reflects our aspirations for a better designed and more sustainable built environment.
We have built a reputation for designing interesting, sustainable, and well-built spaces. Our work can be characterised by strong, beautiful forms, that use materials with integrity.
We have a deep understanding across architecture, urban design, master planning and sustainability. This is complemented by specialised capabilities in interior design, building information management (BIM), and architectural visualisation.
We are focused on being mindful about how the buildings we create impact our environment and the world around us.
We are delivering some of the country’s most significant timber buildings, creating innovative solutions for business environments and industrial sites, designing vibrant and attractive neighbourhoods for diverse communities, and creating commercial and industrial spaces that will endure for generations to come.
We work across Aotearoa New Zealand with studios in Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch and Wānaka.
Together let’s create architecture.
COMMERCIAL & INDUSTRIAL
The award-winning Pic’s Peanut Butter World is a purpose-built destination for locals and visitors to Nelson and a mustdo for lovers of peanut butter.
DINZ Best Awards –Bronze Award, Built Environment, 2020
New Zealand Commercial Project Awards – Silver Award, Industrial, 2020
The building’s design is a physical expression of the Pic’s brand personality – vibrant and innovative.
Designed to cater for future growth and act as a showcase for the company, the building houses a generous foyer featuring an attentiongrabbing spiral staircase and public café. Visitors are met ‘out front’ and then guided, step by step, through the processes of peanut butter production, which can be viewed from a tour mezzanine overlooking the working factory.
Storage, staff and office spaces round out the plan, with bold colour used playfully throughout to continue to express the Pic’s brand.
Construction is from pre-cast concrete panels and steel, and features a pair of gables, one recessed and solid for the loading canopy, and the other highly transparent with a glazed curtain wall on the street front.
The building purposely sits close to the street edge, directly interacting with the city and drawing in visitors.
BRAGATO RESEARCH INSTITUTE WINERY
The BRI Research Winery, New Zealand’s first Green Star 5 winemaking facility, provides world-class research facilities to the New Zealand wine industry, enabling the industry to trial new technologies and processes. Location
2020
Developed following a masterplanning process for the wider site, the winery’s architecturally simple form hides a sophisticated programme that facilitates the changing nature of the research work taking place within.
Refined cladding and glazing details, and exposed structural forms, elevate the building above its simple industrial references to that of an elegant shed. Internally, custom CNC-etched acoustic panels in oak veneer control noise levels in meeting spaces, and reference the traditional materials of wine-making.
Temperature control and running costs are critical functions and were carefully considered within the design. The first building in Marlborough to be awarded a 5 Green Star NZ Industrial Built v3
Certified rating, sustainable design initiatives utilised in the design include:
Opened in 2017, Plant & Food’s Seafood Research Centre is an outcome of a masterplanning project focused on consolidating seafood research activities into one site at Port Nelson. The building is now an anchor tenant of the Seafood Research Precinct.
PLANT & FOOD SEAFOOD RESEARCH CENTRE
Location
Nelson Status
Completed 2017 Awards
Timber Design Excellence in Engineered Wood Products, 2018
NZIA Nelson/ Marlborough Architecture, Commercial Award 2018
This facility provides a modern, flexible work environment for 50 staff in a series of focus and collaborative spaces. Natural light is drawn into the building through the two-storey glazed curtain wall and sky lights, and natural ventilation through louvers and high-level actuator-opened windows. Acoustic absorption is achieved through acoustic louvres and batts.
Specialist science facilities include chemistry labs, PC2 Molecular labs, wet labs and a flow tank. A high level of transparency through the building be-tween the labs and
office environments to promote interaction and connectivity between these spaces.
The main structure is expressed locally sourced (less than 100km) mass timber featuring a high level of prefabricated timber elements, including XLAM timber shear walls, LVL cross columns for lateral bracing, Poitus LVL flooring and roof components. Bound on water by three sides, the building is aluminium clad to provide a robust and durable exterior in this harsh marine environment.
The reconfiguration, reuse and update of an existing 1950’s warehouse at Port Nelson was undertaken with the aims of bringing the building up to current seismic standards and providing a modern working environment for port staff.
PORT NELSON OFFICES
Previously utilised as offices, the building was a rabbit warren of under utilised and disused spaces. This adaptive-reuse has significantly opened up the spaces, while conserving the historic value of the building, and referencing the port’s history. Features include:
• Expressing the existing steel trusses and concrete beam and column structures
• Glazing of the saw tooth gable walls to introduce daylight deep into the plan
• Use of historic port photos as a feature on glazing manifestations.
The interior fitout was undertaken to comply with Government Property Management Centre of Expertise (GPMCOE) workspace standards and features. Features include:
• Flexible desking arrangement
• Storage along with planters to introduce greenery into the space
• Mobile technology with specialist wireless design and interactive smart screen technology
• Specialist acoustic ceilings throughout to maintain a quite working environment.
Cawthron Aquaculture Park (CAP) is a world-class research and technology centre for the New Zealand aquaculture sector and its stakeholders.
CAWTHRON AQUACULTURE PARK
The park is a shared facility, purpose built for aquaculture research, education and commercial development.
CAP is located on a 24ha lowlying site adjacent to Nelson Haven, with ready access for seawater supply and discharge. Initially comprising an ad-hoc collection of storage ponds and service buildings, JTB Architects undertook masterplanning to maximise potential development opportunities and to achieve
efficiencies in infrastructure and services reticulation.
Resource consent was obtained for the site in 2010, and we have been continuously involved with the subsequent development of facility buildings, including two development phases for the Cawthron Aquaculture research building, Spat NZ, the Cawthron Finfish Research Facility, and have recently completed the development of the National Algal Research Centre.
The Contour Roofing factory provides production office and showroom facilities for the Nelson-based roofing, light steelwork and window manufacturing company.
Located in an industrial zone adjacent to the main road into Nelson, the site provided a highvisibility opportunity to showcase the client’s product.
An asymmetric monopitch roof allows sun and ventilation to penetrate the interior and provides a large overhang for door openings on the north elevation. The south elevation, facing the motorway, is a steeper pitch and contains storage facilities which buffer the building from road noise and winds.
The ridgeline to the building is curved to echo the rolling hills that form a backdrop to the
buildings and to avoid the usual ridge flashing that characterises industrial sheds. The roof to the south is extended lower to the ground, to reduce the scale of the wall facing the motorway, and to reduce the prominence of the eaves gutter.
Influenced by the colours of Tasman Bay and the work of local artists, the roof facing the motorway is clad with 12 different coloured profiled metal sheets, which are carefully composed in a variegated pattern that provides visual interest and breaks the scale of the building to suit the surroundings.
Located in Blenheim, Marlborough Vintners Winery is a contract wine-making facility providing wine-making services which utilise cutting-edge technology with an emphasis on sustainable practices.
MARLBOROUGH VINTNERS WINERY
Completed December 2022, the new winry building comprises a cellar door providing space for eight to 10 vineyards, restaurant, brewery, tap room, laboratories, and offices along with private dining and conference facilities.
Use of natural materials and sustainable design principles were emphasised throughout the design, with low carbon, mass-timber used extensively throughout; prefabricated using Potius™ engineered roof, walls and flooring panels, and TimberLab LVL portals. Temperature is regulated through
thermal gain and underfloor heating of the concrete slab, and cross ventilation and overhangs for shading in hotter months.
For the interior, Himalayan cedar panelling from timber felled on the owner’s property, tables are from live-edge flitches of gum, and sheet boarding is painted with paint incorporating iron filings produce a rusted earth effect.
Outside, the landscaping references the surrounding land, with curves formed in corten steel referencing the braided rivers that ran through the area in the past.
Opened in September 2022, the New Zealand Wine Centre - Te Pokapū Wāina
o
Aotearoa, establishes a collaborative hub for the viticulture industry, research and education organisations within Blenheim’s Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology campus.
NEW ZEALAND WINE CENTRE
Location
NMIT Marlborough Research Centre, Nelson Status Completed 2022 Awards
NZIA Nelson/ Marlborough Architecture, Commercial Award 2023
Placed in what was previously an area occupied by prefab buildings, the NZWC building provides formal and informal spaces including conference spaces, meeting rooms and a cafeteria. Expansive glazing along the eastern side creates a sense of openness and connection to the redeveloped courtyard space and surrounding campus.
Utilising steel and timber frame construction, the Centre is clad in dark tray metal cladding, reducing maintenance and cost. In direct contrast to the materials of the surrounding existing buildings, the exterior of the structure creates a new, harmonious language.
Internally, a simple but sophisticated scheme has been used throughout the internal finishes. Lush green carpet and folded plate ceilings lined with locally grown hardwood link all the spaces, while the superstructure, picked out in black, recedes. All spaces have a strong focus on acoustic performance, with grey and white triangulated acoustic panels covering meeting room walls.
Nelson Vets is a new veterinary hospital for Nelson, aiming to cater for the increasing demand for service in the region.
NELSON VETS
The new Nelson Vetbuilding is located on a corner site in Stoke and contains modern consulting rooms, operating theatres, office and reception spaces. Sleeping facilities are also provided on-site to allow for an emergency after hours service to be operated when required.
Arranged over ground and mezzanine floors, precast concrete was utilised for the boundary walls, with timber framed walls and mezzanine floors. Cladding is in a
combination of fibre cement and profiled metal with double glazed windows.
With a tight budget and quick turnaround required, an early contractor involvement approach was used to help keep the project on track.
Established in 1862, the Nelson Building Society has maintained its flagship branch at Trafalgar Street in Nelson since 1910. Following the growth and evolution of the company, the Society was seeking to modernise and increase available workspace.
NELSON BUILDING SOCIETY
Taking a reuse approach to minimise environmental impact, the interior layout was reconfigured and an additional 85m² added through the extension of the first floor into unused atrium space. Interior materials were removed for reuse where possible.
Acoustics were a major component of this project; noise levels in the busy reception space and open plan workspaces are managed through the use of materials that provided both texture and acoustic performance. Throughout the space, wall and ceiling panelling were designed to incorporate
lighting, acoustics and AV requirements for a fully integrated solution.
On the new first floor, full height operable partitions provide flexibility through allowing for the boardroom and cafe to be open to one another for large meetings, or create two separate rooms.
The interior palette references NBS’s historic palette through use of brass and warm timber, and the black and white of archive imagery; the detailing brings together the historic elements with a contemporary aesthetic.
