Supreme Court wins international award

The structural engineering of the Supreme Court building project won a significant international engineering award at the weekend, much to the delight of the Minister for Courts, Georgina te Heuheu.

The structural design of the new Supreme Court of New Zealand and the seismic protection of the old High Court building was conducted by Holmes Consulting Group. The project won the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) Structural Award in the Heritage category, announced in London on Friday night.

The Supreme Court had been shortlisted alongside the Danish Cancer Centre and Nottingham Trent University in England.

"The old High Court building was opened in 1881 and was Wellington's first Government building built in anything other than timber. Its last use was in 1993 when the High Court moved to its present site on Molesworth Street. It had been vacant since and was in quite a state of disrepair when the Supreme Court building project started.

"The building was heritage protected and had to be restored. Those who have seen the result will agree that it is stunning work. It has made an old building modern, while still respecting the workmanship and traditions of the period it was built.

"To be able to protect that heritage for the future, particularly in Wellington, in a way that works so well with the new building and provides the Supreme Court complex with an element of New Zealand's legal history, is an achievement of which New Zealanders should be proud," Mrs te Heuheu said.

The old High Court building now serves several purposes. It has office space and meeting facilities and is the home of the Institute of Judicial Studies - the educational branch of the judiciary. The restored No.1 courtroom has seen considerable use for civil cases and for educational and ceremonial purposes, including the swearing in of judges.

The IStructE award is not the Supreme Court's first. The building has already won a Designers Institute of New Zealand ‘Best' design award and regional awards from both Registered Master Builders and the Institute of Architects. National awards for those organisations will be announced later this year.

The Supreme Court was also one of 11 buildings shortlisted for an international architectural award, won by a building in Spain.