Ironbank (Auckland)

Ironbank is a 4,500-m2, six-level mixed-used (retail and office) development on Karangahape Road, Auckland City, New Zealand. The building also provides a mechanical, automated car stacker for 96 cars, which the robotic system racks in a four-level storage wall.[1][2] It also used a variety of environmentally friendly building facilities, such as reduced energy demands due to a design that can dispense with air conditioning.[2]

Ironbank mostly complete in mid-2009. The "container" structures are more strikingly visible from Cross Street, a parallel street behind K'Road.
A view of the shipping container design of the south side.

The seven-storey building has both been criticised and lauded for looking like "rusting containers", and an architecture critic noted it reminded him of "kindergarten day in a shipping yard", calling it the "most complex and adventurous building" of RTA Studio (designed for Samson Corporation).[2] The building is hoped to achieve 5-star Green Building certification.[3]

In 2009, it received three architecture awards, in the "commercial", "sustainable" and "urban design" categories of the New Zealand Institute of Architects Auckland awards sponsored by the paint company Resene.[1] It then captured second place at the World Architecture Festival, a European award, making it the best-scoring New Zealand entrant ever at the festival, and being praised for "Its sophisticated attitude to the messy urbanity of south-central Auckland".[4]

It was also mentioned in a The New Zealand Herald series where prominent Aucklanders nominated outstanding Auckland buildings constructed since 2000. Urban designer Ludo Campbell-Reid specifically noted that the building was greater than the sum of its parts, that it would help re-invigorate Karangahape Road and its backstreets, and that unlike most buildings, it looked better from the back than from the front side.[5]

See also

References
  1. Gibson, Anne (14 October 2009). "Ironbank a towering success with three awards". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  2. Gibson, Anne (2 November 2009). "Robots park the cars in Ironbank". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  3. Iron Bank, Auckland, RTA Studio Archived 2009-09-26 at the Wayback Machine (from the sharearchitecture.co.nz website. Accessed 2009-10-17.)
  4. Gibson, Anne (11 November 2009). "K Rd building named one of world's best". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  5. "Ironbank: Proud standard-bearer for excellence". The New Zealand Herald. 12 January 2010. Retrieved 5 October 2011.

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