WHAT WE DO
Architecture Workshop (AW) creates pioneering, calm environments tailored to both client and location through a careful integration of architecture, construction and site. Established in Wellington more than 20 years ago, we bring a wide range of international experience and design knowledge to our projects in Aotearoa. In the words of AW principal Christopher Kelly, 'Our practice reflects what I call the workshop process: instead of starting with a drawing, you start with an idea. Maybe you make a model, you discuss it with colleagues, with the people who might make it. Only then do you go back and draw. The drawing is used for feedback on price, then the idea is refined again. It’s a circular process, a dialogue that develops the original idea, which evolves because of feedback from other consultants, and, of course, the client'.
Our Services
include master planning, feasibility assessment, strategic advice, and architecture and urban design. Our approach is conceptual in nature, with the key organising ideas refined and developed during the design process. Our staff utilize the latest in digital software, with a particular expertise in parametric modeling and BIM – reflecting the world-leading projects on which we have worked. In addition to design, AW project-manage the construction process and delivery of the building, including construction methodology, cost and value management, tendering to select the contractor and the contract administration during site construction.
Our Clients
include leading government, education and tourism organizations, and ambitious individuals. They are located in New Zealand and overseas, and have aspiring visions for diverse and often challenging sites. AW is selected for our blue-sky thinking and the way in which we tailor each design to the client and location – producing both subtle, place-based solutions as well as the iconic buildings for which we are known.
Our Experience
encompasses designing for many of New Zealand’s most beautiful and remote places, as well as our increasingly diverse cities. Architecture is about increasing the opportunities for people to connect, and we bring a range of international experience and design knowledge to the discussion. Our portfolio includes creating new buildings, the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings, resolving complex master plans and reinvigorating tired precincts.
Our People
'Our architectural purpose is to help people realize their potential, be it technical craft in realizing design or cost-focused project management.'
Christopher Kelly, Founding Principal
View Our Work
The environments we curate share an authenticity of structure, materials and design thinking, and together these generate a restorative quality of place.
Image (above): Lindis Lodge
A new five-bedroom suite lodge is excavated into the moraine folds of the earth, the soaring timber ...
