New Zealand Wine Centre Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa

JERRAM TOCKER BARRON ARCHITECTS

Words: Adrienne Matthews | Colleen Tunnicliffe

Wine is one of New Zealand’s leading export earners and the opportunity to increase research, development, and training to support this vital industry has been taken to a new level with the construction of the New Zealand Wine Centre, Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, in the heart of Marlborough, the country’s largest winegrowing region.

Charitable trust, the Marlborough Research Centre (MRC), tasked with enabling locally-based scientific research to grow the region’s economy, led the development in collaboration with key partners the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology - Te Pukenga (NMIT), Plant & Food Research, the Bragato Institute, Sustainable Winegrowing NZ, Wine Marlborough, the Marlborough District Council and the government’s Provincial Growth Fund.

The NMIT site was chosen as it links the wine and viticulture education and research facilities of the existing campus with Plant & Food Research and the NZ Winegrower’s Bragato Institute. With co-working spaces, meeting rooms and offices, it has created a central hub for those involved in the country’s wine industry to meet and work together to foster the research, development, and education of this important sector.

Having already designed the award winning Bragato Institute building next door and been involved in a number of related commercial projects in the region, JTB Architects were commissioned to design the new building. “Alongside design of the NZWC building, we were tasked with creating a strong entry hub for the NMIT campus, connecting the Centre to the existing private research facilities to encourage collaboration,” says JTB Architects Project Designer, Karl Vercoe. “This was an important next step in the overall master plan for the site which includes an experimental vineyard already underway,” adds Project Director Simon Hall.

A substantial and striking courtyard entrance offers a warm and welcoming space, highlighted by the wide canopy that extends out from the building to form both shelter and a bold design statement. “At the core of the project was a desire to use as many sustainable materials as possible,” says Karl. “NZ sustainably grown Black Butt Eucalyptus was chosen for this element and throughout the building thanks to its density, durability and as a reference to the work the Marlborough Research Centre has been undertaking that shows this timber is an excellent, environmentallyfriendly alternative to the traditionally-used, treated tanalised posts on vineyards.”

A challenge of the interior design was achieving the correct amount of soundproofing throughout the different spaces. “Good acoustics are vital in this kind of building where there are potentially many different activities taking place at any one time,” explains Karl.

Innovative acoustic panels were created for the ceiling that reference the shape of the Marlborough hills and the colour of wine barrels. Peter Owen of Evan Jones Construction, the company who constructed the building, says it was one of the biggest challenges of the project. “It didn’t look complicated on the plans but getting it absolutely lined up perfectly took a great deal of skill from our building team,” he says.

In the meeting rooms, the theme is carried through on the walls by purpose-built, hill-shaped acoustic baffles in sympathetic colours to the rest of the interior. “We carried out considerable research into acoustic options and these have been highly successful,” says Karl.

A second architectural award was received for the colours throughout the interior that reference the surrounding environment. These include the varying tones of greens from the plains, vineyards and hills and the greys and blacks of Marlborough’s stonybraided rivers.

“We were able to carry over many of the sustainability features used in our design for the Bragato Institute as well as creating a design language that ties in across all the Marlborough wine industry projects we are involved with,” he says.

It is a miracle that the building opened on time due to the range of difficulties caused by the delays of Covid and floods during the construction. “The goalposts were constantly changing due to the shortages of some materials,” says Peter. “It took ongoing collaboration with the design team to come up with innovative alternatives that could still allow the build to progress while not altering the fundamentals of the design.” jtbarchitects.co.nz

Despite all the difficulties involved during the construction period, JTB Architects is delighted that their design and the combined collaboration of all involved has been recognised by another architectural award.

“The success of the building is owed to the collaborative approach taken throughout the project from design to completion involving the clients, design team and contractor, and it is very satisfying to have contributed to another of these world-class facilities in our own backyard,” says Karl.