Te Tumu, New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) is Aotearoa’s newest and largest convention centre, designed by Warren and Mahoney, Woods Bagot and Moller Architects in association.
Talk to Eric Buhrs about Culture
Located in the heart of Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, the project is strategically placed to engage with Auckland’s innovation ecosystem of universities, business headquarters, and commercial hubs. As well as a connected central location, the site also benefits from visual links to the natural landscape, with views from the Waitakere Ranges to the Waitemata Harbour.
Occupying half a city block and bordered by three traffic-heavy arterial routes, the new centre activates the site through an integrated atrium and public laneways. Employing a vertically stacked, flexible floorplate that allows seamless delegate movement between meeting, exhibition, and performance spaces.
Te Tumu includes a 2,850-seat plenary hall; over 8,000 square metres of flexible exhibition space; and 33 modular meeting rooms to cater for intimate breakout sessions and large gatherings in turn. The adaptable, demountable structure supports long-term resilience, avoiding embodied carbon associated with future refurbishment.
With interior architecture and convention centre expertise delivered by Woods Bagot, the scheme incorporates blackened steel and silver beech hardwood, contrasting light and dark to echo the dramatic natural beauty of the New Zealand landscape.
Associate Principal and Project Leader Eric Buhrs says the interior design is not only highly functional, but deeply contextual to place, embedding the stories of whenua (land) and whakapapa (ancestry) in the built form.
“Rooted in the idea of One Language, Many Voices, our design for the NZICC translates the textures, stories, and spirit of Aotearoa into a contemporary civic landmark,” says Buhrs. “By drawing on the dynamic forms of the New Zealand landscape and the depth of Māori cultural narrative, the centre speaks with an unmistakably local voice while welcoming the world.”
The name Te Tumu – meaning ‘the foundation’ or ‘tree stump’ – was gifted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, and speaks to a strong source and resolute base from which growth stems.
“Rooted in the idea of One Language, Many Voices, our design for the NZICC translates the textures, stories, and spirit of Aotearoa into a contemporary civic landmark By drawing on the dynamic forms of the New Zealand landscape and the depth of Māori cultural narrative, the centre speaks with an unmistakably local voice while welcoming the world.”