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Nine projects were recognised in the 2024 Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects Nelson and Marlborough Awards on 7 June at Nelson’s Trafalgar Centre.

An epic house more than 10 years in the making, a utilitarian boat shed, and a public building that revitalises Blenheim’s town centre are among the 2024 winners.

“Projects in this year’s awards have weathered unprecedented conditions including extreme weather events, supply chain issues, spiralling costs and COVID,” says Euan MacKellar, convenor of the jury. “Despite the unforeseen challenges, architects managed to hold onto key concepts, maintain good design and foster strong relationships with their clients and builders — a credit to the profession.”

The Lookout, a home that stands out in the Tasman landscape like a piece of contemporary sculpture, thanks to its rusty red exterior and Brutalist form, is a fine example of the region’s award-worthy projects. Designed by Parsonson Architects, the building is bold, dramatic and meticulously detailed. Similarly, Longbeach Bay Boatshed by Arthouse Architects, a winner in the Small Project Architecture category, is striking in its modernity. A “very strong and well-proportioned form with a minimal material palette takes inspiration from the existing home and its triple gable,” said the jury. “While its primary function is boatshed, multi-use is its mantra. It’s a kitchen, bar, dining hall and wind break.”

In the Public Architecture category, Marlborough District Library and Art Gallery | Te Kahu o Waipuna is the sole winner. Designed by Warren and Mahoney, the civic building is reinvigorating Blenheim’s High Street with its bronzed exterior and flexible interior layout. It also received a Resene Colour Award. 

A jury of four judges — Matt Gutsell of Sheppard & Rout Architects, Magdalena Garbarczyk of Fineline Architecture, architect Helena Alexander from Alexander Romagnoli, and lay juror landscape architect, Heidi Stewart — assessed this year’s projects, along with convenor Euan MacKellar.. Read More and See Photos Here

The 2024 Pritzker Prize, widely regarded as architecture’s Nobel, has again been awarded to a Japanese architect.
In an announcement from Chicago on March 5, Yokohama-based architect Riken Yamamoto was named the recipient of this year’s award, which is dedicated to “a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.”

This makes Yamamoto, 78, the ninth Japanese person to be awarded the prestigious honor. No country has produced more laureates than Japan in the prize’s 45-year history, an indication of the high regard that its architects and architecture are held in globally.

The Pritzker’s jury citation identifies Yamamoto’s sustained focus on engendering human connection through built space as being his defining contribution to architecture.

“In his long, coherent, rigorous career,” the Pritzker jury writes, “Riken Yamamoto has managed to produce architecture both as background and foreground to everyday life, blurring boundaries between its public and private dimensions, and multiplying opportunities for people to meet spontaneously, through precise, rational design strategies.”

Unlike many other laureates, Yamamoto is not a household name. But his work and approach have long been admired within the Japanese architectural scene. His work is unostentatious, devoted to the plan rather than the concept or the image, and ultimately most concerned with that most fundamental “material” of architectural space: social patterns and human connection. His colleague and sometime collaborator, the late Kazuhiro Kojima, once wrote of his astonishment at hearing Yamamoto state that “museums and public halls do not excite me. ... Collective housing and schools are more interesting.”

Private and public
This interest in what the Pritzker citation calls “the responsibility of the social demand” can be seen from Yamamoto’s earliest works, which, as is the case for most young architects, were inevitably.. Read More Here

Cedarburg High School alumnus and Grafton native Matthew Clapper has been honored by the American Institute of Architects with the National AIA Young Architect of 2023 award. The award is given to individuals who, in an early stage of their architectural career, have shown exceptional leadership and made significant contributions to the profession and community at large.

Clapper was selected due to his efforts expanding the AIA Small Firm Exchange (SFx) to be more inclusive in regard to gender and race and to represent all 50 states so small firm architects could readily share information and find support, according to the AIA.

Clapper was National SFx Chair in 2021, increasing membership through Zoom meetings during COVID and supplying support to small firms struggling during a trying time. His volunteer efforts included directing the Wilson Underline, a marketplace beneath the L elevated train in Chicago. Clapper is also a mentor to aspiring architects/students in the Wing program.

Clapper is principal and founder of Modern Architecture & Development (MAD) based in Milwaukee since 2013 with an extension in Chicago. He grew up in Grafton, where he owns a farm and is president of Country View Development, a residential subdivision selling 1-acre lots that share a pond and trail through the woods off Lakefield Road.

He believes being multifaceted can provide a balance between social good and financial aspects, according to AIA.

"Rather than tract housing squeezing into every foot of land, each quality home must be of a different design and has space to encompass the true country view of sunsets beyond fields," according to the AIA award. He personally oversees all aspects of the development from wetland studies, engineering drawings, to contracts while pushing the architecture profession forward. Clapper also received the state AIA Wisconsin Young Architect Award in 2022.

Clapper received his Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University in New York City, his Advanced Professional Certificate in Real Estate Development from NYU and his original Master of Architecture from..Read More Here