Scion’s Te Whare Nui o Tuteata puts NZ on the architecture world map Scion’s innovation hub, Te Whare Nui o Tuteata, has won 15 domestic and international awards since opening in March 2021, making it an international timber architecture icon. The Rotorua building is believed to be a world-first diagonal-grid (diagrid) timber structure for a three-storey building, while also being embodied-carbon neutral. Its name and design feature stories of tangata whenua, Ngā Hapū e Toru. The building was designed by RTA Studio in collaboration with Irving Smith Architects. In December 2021, Te Whare Nui o Tuteata won two World Architecture Festival awards (World Best use of Certified Timber Prize; World Higher Education and Research), and a New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) National Award (Commercial). Overall, Te Whare Nui o Tuteata won 15 significant national and international awards, and Scion sustainability architect and portfolio leader Andrea Stocchero believes there are many compelling reasons why.
26 SCION CONNECTIONS MAGAZINE • ISSUE 41 • JUNE 2022
“Tackling climate change requires working together and this building provides an invitation to ‘come walk in our forest’ and see how we can all better participate with the environment.” Rich Naish, RTA Studio executive director
“From the outside, you see a simple building with fascinating colours that match the forest and at the entrance, Māori kōwhaiwhai patterns from the tangata whenua. But inside you see a striking timber structure, architectural lines and natural materials in harmony with each other – that is what is so impactful. “The world is on a quest to decarbonise across many different sectors. Trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere while they’re growing, as long as the wood is in use that carbon is stored so it’s not going back into the atmosphere. If the
timber is sustainably certified it means that the forests are re-growing after each harvest, and the carbon sequestration cycle continues.” Te Whare Nui o Tuteata stores 418 tonnes of CO2-equivalent for the life of the building, which is the equivalent of one person flying 160 times return from Auckland to London. “We calculated that the timber we see in Te Whare Nui o Tuteata has been regrown in 35 minutes by New Zealand planted forests,” illustrates Stocchero. “This is a compelling story about the
