Following the project’s success at the Auckland Regional Awards, NZICC has been shortlisted for the Public and Interior categories in the national awards program.

With architecture by Warren and Mahoney, interior design and convention centre expertise by Woods Bagot, and hotel design by Moller Architects, NZICC is the product of true collaboration, already recognised as one of New Zealand’s most significant tourism investments of this century.

Woods Bagot Principal Andy Gentry says NZICC was a highly complex and ambitious project, with project partners navigating intricacies from its grand scale to its extraordinary flexibility.

“The NZICC has endured many challenges, including the 2019 fire, which our design collaborators responded to with determination and ingenuity,” says Gentry. “The outcome is a resilient and highly resolved piece of public architecture that will serve its community for decades to come.”

Woods Bagot Associate Principal Eric Buhrs adds the interior design is deeply contextual, 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.”