Maori Women's Welfare League

NZIA Local Award 2011

This thorough refurbishment of the Maori Women’s Welfare League’s premises, in the historic suburb of Thorndon, has created comfortable, light-filled offices, meeting rooms and accommodation space. The challenge was to provide a sensitive, contemporary identity for the League, while contributing positively to the streetscape and meeting the spatial and aesthetic brief of the client (within the tight planning and heritage regulations for the site).

The primary form of the original house was retained, while being moved across the site to allow new additions to the front and rear. A decorative timber screen drapes around the garage and wraps into the main entry. This detail is the metaphoric cloak that adds a further level of detail and finery to the street frontage and provides identity to the League. The new addition to the front of the house is an enclosed sun porch which acts as an entry and reception gallery. Additions to the rear open out on to new decks and overlook the landscaped courtyard below.