Northland Regional Council – Kaipara Service Centre

The Northland Regional Council’s “Kaipara Service Centre” is a multi-story project that HB Architecture won through an invited “competition” process. Completed at the end of Aotearoa New Zealand’s SARS Covid-19 “Lockdown”, the culmination of teamwork and tenacity created a well-designed building.

The triangular site, with the long boundary facing north-west, created the opportunity for a rhombus-shaped footprint. The narrow building is ideal for outlook and natural sunlight. Overheating to the west was addressed by installing external louvres over the floor-to-ceiling glazing. This maximised natural light rather than reducing the glazing area. The building has piled foundations below the concrete ground floor, and a structural steel frame supporting the upper-level concrete floor and the steel-framed roof. The external finishes are specialist cladding and glazing systems, profiled steel finished Korok panels to fire-rated boundary walls and profiled steel roof.