Te Awamutu banner

This project reconfigured and refurbished a C1940 retail and warehouse building to provide a comfortable, modern and beautiful office for a small business. The building was previously largely derelict and consisted of three small brick-walled shops joined at the rear by lean-to extensions and a concrete-walled warehouse.

The design retains the shopfronts and perimeter wall of the buildings, preserving its appearance from the street, but creates a rich interior with multiple layers and materials in the horizontal plane, which also expands vertically into a new rectangular roof volume with high, pitched ceilings and clerestory windows. The interior is re-oriented towards a side laneway, which becomes the building entrance and a semi-private exterior space. Internally, the spaces are configured as semi-open plan workspaces around a central casual meeting space and foyer—with kitchen, storeroom, and restrooms located mid-plan.

While the interior is spatially and materially complex, the new exterior works are comparatively simple and plain. The central ‘pop-top’ roof is rectangular in form, with windows set into the northern and southern facades—the form and materials hint at the modern intervention within. The laneway follows this theme, but also uses light, shadow and shape to draw visitors through the lane, below the folded-steel canopy and between the timber-clad walls to the foyer.

Christopher Beer Architect
Waikato
Visit Website

About the
Professional

Christopher Beer Architect Limited is an architectural design studio which delivers carefully-crafted and thoughtfully-designed buildings. Our projects have been recognised with high-level awards, including HOME Magazine’s Home of the Year Award and an NZIA New Zealand Architecture Award for Housing.

As a design practice, we're interested in projects which intrigue and delight. Creating architecture can be a difficult and daunting task, and we aim to guide our clients deftly and carefully through the process using our knowledge of design and our experience in building. We delight in sharing our design skills with our clients to create objects and buildings which are delightful and spaces which are both calming and exciting. Our goal is that each project reflect our client's aspirations and enhance their experience of life and living.

We work on projects of all scales and budgets, in all parts of New Zealand. We’re especially interested in working with clients who have projects that are unique, difficult, intriguing… or just special. We enjoy discussing architecture and encourage anyone contemplating a building project to get in touch.

At ArchiPro we recognise and acknowledge the existing, original and ancient connection Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have to the lands and waterways across the Australian continent. We pay our respects to the elders past and present. We commit to working together to build a prosperous and inclusive Australia.