2023 Awards

Beautiful projects up in lights

The 2023 Landmarks Trust Awards have been announced, recognising public art works, fine architecture, landscape and the preservation of heritage.

The awards recipients are a diverse range of organisations, communities and businesses which have contributed to keeping Hastings beautiful.

The Supreme Winner, receiving the Jeremy Dwyer Award for Excellence, was Matthews & Matthews Architects Ltd in recognition of their significant contribution to the strengthening and refurbishment of the Toitoi Municipal Building.

The Landmarks Trust was initiated in the late 1990s by then mayor, the late Jeremy Dwyer, to promote Hastings’ identity and sense of place, and foster civic pride.

Jeremy Dwyer Award for Excellence: Matthews & Matthews Architects Ltd - Toitoi Municipal Building 

Matthews & Matthews Architects Ltd has won this year's Jeremy Dwyer Award for Excellence in recognition of their significant contribution to the strengthening and upgrade of the Toitoi Municipal Building. 

Built in 1916, to provide new premises for the Hastings Borough Council, the Council offices, the Assembly Hall as well as retail shops, the Municipal Building has played an enduring role in the civic and community life of Hastings. It holds community memories, with generations of people having attended events in the building.

After four years of being closed to the community, in 2018, Hastings District Council called for submissions from Hawke's Bay architects for proposals that would allow the building to continue in this role.

The project involved seismic upgrading and redevelopment for uses including performing arts and education, meetings, exhibitions as well as Hastings' iSite, retail and hospitality venues.

The design was to carefully integrate the seismic work alongside recovery of original heritage values and extend the use and value of its built resources for as long as possible. The overarching design philosophy for this heritage project was to bring back the light, energy; and vitality of the community, as a place of creativity and connections.

The finished building has greater access, and transparency. It has views into the building at street level, bringing life and vibrancy to the entire complex and the surrounding city.

Art in Public Places Award: Phil Belcher, Nathan Foote and Raikai Karaitiana - Ngā Pou Kauheke o Waimārama

Phil Belcher, Nathan Foote and Rakai Karaitiana have won this year's Art in Public Places Award in recognition of the significant contribution of the Ngā Pou Kauheke o Waimārama. 

The journey that led to the creation of the four pou at Waimārama began in 2020 when representatives of Taupunga Marae, the Waimārama community and carvers began sowing the seed of creating pou that would acknowledge the history; whakapapa and korero of Waimārama land and people, through traditional whakairo (carving).

The pou in place support, grow, acknowledge, and make more visible and accessible the significance and history of Waimārama as a special place.

The four pou have an individual story to tell but importantly form a collective that signify particular ancestors who hold mana in Waimārama.

• Kaiwhakatorea - Pā at mouth of Pouhokio river
• Mokomokouri - Pā at river mouth Waingongoro
• 'Toki Poutangata' at Paparewa, Tākitimu landing site
• Entrance Pou, 'Waimarama'

Landmarks, on behalf of the whole District, acknowledges, appreciates, and applauds, the skill and talent of the carvers, Phil Belcher and Nathan Foote and designer Rakai Karaitiana,
as it has been their mahi that has been central to the creation of these iconic and culturally significant public artworks.

From the selection of timber, the concept design to the finished work, the carvers have exhibited skill and patience as they unlocked the stunning artworks from the totara logs.

The Heretaunga community thank you for being made all the richer by having these pou amongst us.

Heritage Award: Rose Mohi - Heretaunga: A Journey to Rediscovery

Rose Mohi has won this year's History Award in recognition of her project Heretaunga: A Journey of Rediscovery.  

In the 1860s, preparations for a large new wharenui/meeting house named Heretaunga at Pakowhai in HB began under the authority of Ngāti Kahungunu rangatira /chief and politician Karaitiana Takamoana (1810-1879).

Expert carvers were commissioned from the Iwirakau School and they travelled down from Te Tairāwhiti /East Coast to undertake the intricate carving. Unfortunately, Karaitiana died unexpectedly, which left the carvings and therefore the wharenui unfinished.

Sometime after Karaitiana's death, the carvings were obtained by the collector Thomas Morland Hocken (1838-1910), in a deal brokered by ethnologist Augustus Hamilton (1853-1913), who was desperate to obtain a carved whare (house) for the NZ and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin in 1889-90.

They were eventually purchased by Hocken and donated to the Otago Museum. From the 1920s, more than 30 of Heretaunga's carved poupou/wall panels were exchanged or presented to museums throughout the world as well as here in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

At least four poupou from Te Whare o Heretaunga are part of the collection at the Museum of New Zealand/Te Papa Tongarewa, initially presented by Hamilton in 1904, Rose Mohi has undertaken research for 20 years, visiting museums in Aotearoa and Australia, USA and the UK to locate the scattered taonga and has worked on the claim by Ngāti Kahungunu Waitangi Treaty settlement group to have all poupou belonging to this whare returned to Ngā iwi o Heretaunga/the people of Heretaunga.

Architecture Award: Architecture HDT HB LTD - Kaweka Hospital

Architecture HDT HB Ltd has won this year's Architecture Award in recognition of their significant contribution to Kaweka Hospital. 

Hawke's Bay has a new hospital called Kaweka Hospital; a name gifted by Ngahiwi Tōmoana of Ngāti Kahungunu iwi.

The client's brief was for the hospital to be "a recognisably Hawke's Bay facility", so the form of the building was inspired by the dramatic boundary peaks of the Kaweka Ranges. The solidity of the Kaweka Range is referenced through the artwork, bricks, and windows. A counterpoint to the building's solidity is the entry which is carved out of the solid form to create a glazed, light-filled, and welcoming space.

The design philosophy was based on biophilic design to create a built environment that improves the health and well-being of staff, patients, and visitors. Biophilia is humankind's innate biological connection with nature, this is achieved through light, visual art, and physical referencing of our natural world within the building.

Of note are the beautiful pillar carvings at the front entrance, crafted by artist Jacob Scott. At one level, they are about the Kaweka ranges, a tough country with raw landscapes and patterns. At another level it is about connections and events in people's lives and changes in direction.

Façade Enhancement Award: Hansen Property Group - 201 Queen Street

The vision of the owners was to retain the history and aesthetics of this corner building which was the home of the Hawke's Bay Today newspaper for over 100 years. 

The building was damaged extensively in the 1931 earthquake so has had various structural changes over the years. When the owners acquired the property in 2018 the building was structurally extremely poor, in a derelict state and was at very high risk from an earthquake perspective.

They made the decision to preserve the facade facing on to Queen and Karamū. Road and rebuild a completely new structure behind it to support the facade. Bricks from the development were repurposed for this new build It now has a 100 per cent earthquake rating while retaining the character of the past. It is occupied by Kindred Road cafe and homewares and is a cornerstone building in the Tribune precinct development.

 

Landscape: Iwi Toi Kahungunu Artist Collective - Te Pae Whīra o Paharakeke (Flaxmere Skate Park)

Iwi Toi Kahungunu Artist Collective has won this year's Landscape Award in recognition of their significant contribution to Te Pae Whīra o Paharakeke (Flaxmere Skate Park). 

Te Pae Whīra o Paharakeke, the Flaxmere Skate Park was opened in December 2022.

Reflecting the whakapapa genealogy in its design and with landscaping paying homage to the once prolific harakeke growing on the site, the park sits on what was once the shingle plain left by the Ngaruroro River on which Flaxmere was built.

Celebrating these important cultural ties while providing a purpose built and state of the art skating facility, provides a wonderful example of what can be achieved when a community embraces and owns the development of an important community facility from its inception.

The cultural design for Te Pae Whira was completed by mana whenua artists from the Iwi Toi Kahungunu Artists Collective, who interpreted a design brief completed by children from Pā Harakeke Flaxmere.

Three designs are interwoven on the paving, the waharoa gateway and pou. Combined with this the skate elements celebrate the use of the site today.

This project contributed to Flaxmere Park winning Recreation Aotearoa's outstanding Active / Sports Park Award in May 2023.

Highly commended

Art in Public Places: Waiohiki Creative Arts Village – Earth, Food and Fire Festival 2022; Chris Bryant-Toi - Te Ara Kahikatea Pou Whenua -Tānenuiārangi, Pūtoto and Parawhenuamea; Landscape: Arohanui Lawrence – Aunty’s Garden; Dena Aroha Bach - Mākirikiri Awa, Heretaunga Street East; History: Judith Burkin - Maraekākaho War Memorial Research Project; Rose Chapman - A Beacon on the Hills, Duart House and the McLeans of Havelock North; Bronwyn Farquharson & Ruth Dawson - Rissington ANZAC Sculpture; Façade Enhancement: Luscombe Legal - 106 Queen Street East; Rural Equities - 120 Karamu Road North; Architecture: RTA Studio- Joll Road Development.