HB Architecture, Northtec Future Trades Facility, Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand

Northtec is a Crown owned tertiary education institution, which offers programs and courses from Level 1-7 on the NZQA framework. Currently the majority of the courses offered by Northtec in the Whangarei area are taught at the Raumanga campus. After a review of services in 2007 it was agreed that there was an urgent need to replace and/or upgrade many of the current buildings on the main campus, reduce the number of teaching sites spread over the Whangarei district and enhancement of trade training in general was required in order to provide a quality teaching facility.

Due to cost/funding constraints it was proposed that the tradetraining element of the Northtec courses would be removed from the Raumanga campus and located in the existing industrial building at 19 Dyers St - formally used for the distribution of food and groceries. Northtec have leased approximately half the existing building and are fitting it out to accommodate the teaching and practical application of the trades training courses.

This move has allowed Northtec to bring together the trade training courses under one roof. These courses include:
Automotive Engineering
Gas and Arc Welding
Metal Fabrication
Engineering and Fitting
Carpentry
Boat Building
Applied Work Practice

The proposal developed minimises the affect of the new use for the building on the external envelope and maximises the volume potential particularly to the workshops, whilst using circulation hallways as a sound insulators between noisy and quiet spaces. Essentially this is an extensive "fit out" of an existing building which addresses one of the major considerations in sustainable design - that of reuse of existing buildings and the continued use of "brownfields" sites.