The building for SCION, the Crown Research Institute for forestry technology, won ‘The Most Beautiful, Innovative and Iconic Building’ award for RTA Studio and Irving Smith Architects.

The façade had 270 unique glass panes — some triple glazed — and was mainly in the APL 150mm Structural Glaze suite (double glazed) with a one metre setback to another glass skin across about half the front elevation. Vantage window supplier, NZWindows, manufactured and installed hundreds of exterior windows which were individually unique because of the coloured digital printing designed to evoke the colours of the surrounding Whakarewarewa Redwood forest.

The Dubai jury gave the SCION project the nod ahead of strong international competition. It commented that the innovation hub transformed the landscape while providing a new campus arrival point.

A trio of ‘peaks’ at the main entrance are representative of the three hapu in the Rotorua area. The full height atrium is a virtual display space for innovative engineered timber.

Enclosed triple glazing on the left and right quadrants of the main facade is designed as a roomy heat trap and carries warm air down to the basement where it is redistributed around the building by an automated system. Similarly, a number of opening windows on electric actuators, installed by NZWindows, open and close automatically according to environmental sensing. Two of these opening sashes are in triangular format above the main door.

In addition to the Dubai award, the building has won other accolades including a New Zealand Architecture Award (national sponsors APL and Resene), and the supreme award of the Window & Glass Association of New Zealand.

Watts & Hughes Construction were the builders.