About the project

Ashburton’s stunning new library and civic centre, Te Whare Whakatere, includes a library, meeting rooms, events spaces and Council Chambers.

Athfield Architects worked with Heritage Carpets to supply custom carpets in key areas of the project. Each area embodied different aspects of the Ashburton district, with carpet designs that celebrate the industry, topography, flora and fauna of the locale. Colour and pattern were essential to master across the project’s several design concepts. Heritage Carpets brought their many years of expertise in custom solutions to the project to ensure the result the design team was looking for — providing stunning Axminster broadlooms bespoke to this award-winning project.

About the spaces

Pioneer Hall (children’s library) is a brick heritage building retained inside the new build. The unique carpet design creates a playful environment fit for stimulating the imagination of its young visitors, translating artwork from local artists into a custom Axminster illustration in five shades of grey. The drawings relate to familiar shapes in the Ashburton District, including farming equipment, landscape patterns seen from the air, and featuring the Winterslow Station’s elusive black cat — the stuff of local legend. 

Axminster designed for the Council Chamber & Councillor's Lounge represents the topographic forms, the reach of landscape, awa and the pathways that stretch between the sea and the mountains in the district.

Detailed pattern and careful colour selections work in with elements in the space, including timber wall cladding and furniture, requiring very subtle colour changes at the end stage of the carpet manufacture.

The Level One Meeting Room custom Axminster celebrates the indigenous species of unique plants found in the Ashburton district, as well as motifs for familiar creatures including eels and birds, deepening the biophilic connection between the design and the flora and fauna of the locale. The carpet design explored pattern on a macro and micro level.

Challenges

Some spaces were not fully built at the time of site measure for the flooring, so site checks, rechecks and allowances for incomplete architectural elements was vital to the success of the project.

The carpet designs flow between spaces, meaning the tolerances for installation were very low. Heritage Carpets took great care to bridge the gap between the manufacturers and the installer for optimal results.

Placement of joins needed to factor in the flow of the design, particularly between spaces, and areas of high traffic.

Achieving detail in patterns and precise colour matching required expert dialogue and clear process to achieve the result the designers wanted for each distinct space.

Heritage Carpets can work with you to create custom carpets and rugs. Additionally Heritage has its own range of in-house plain Axminster. Heritage Carpets work with New Zealand biophilic artist and designer Miranda Brown to design custom pieces with a New Zealand story.