Country: New Zealand
Key Area: Buildings
Services: Architecture,Mechanical & Electrical Engineering,Structural Engineering

Opus Architecture led a multi-disciplinary design team in the development of a new special needs school on Auckland’s North Shore. The school is Auckland’s first purpose-built school for special needs students. Specialised facilities include six classrooms, a multi-purpose space and specialist therapy rooms.

The building is unobtrusive in its relationship to its setting. It connects quietly to the landscape, indulging in the tranquil, serene essence of the site. The building assumes a subdued aspect beneath the surrounding trees and park-like setting, showcasing its simple yet sculptural form. The building’s design conveys a close relationship to nature without visually dominating it.

The natural timber structure reflects the site’s context. It expresses a sense of peace, reassurance and warmth. The closeness to the natural elements that the building projects in its intimate connection with the landscape is a feature that will prove therapeutic to staff, students and visitors alike.

The building employs sustainable design principles, and these design features received full ESD funding.

“From the bottom of my heart a huge thank you for the wonderful work you did in designing our school.  It is absolutely awesome - the way you picked up on the feeling about our school is truly amazing.  It is a beautiful building not only in a physical sense but also in an emotional sense - there is a very peaceful aura about it”.

Marilyn Glover, Chairperson, Board of Trustees, Wilson School.

This building has won the the NZIA award for Public Architecture (2009), and also the New Zealand Architecture Medal for the best designed new building (2009). 

The citation for the New Zealand Architecture Medal reads:

“A building which seeks to meet the needs of our most vulnerable children deserves the best possible architecture.  The Wilson School, New Zealand’s first purpose-built special needs school, is a sophisticated assembly of timber clad boxes set among the mature trees of its well established site.  Children arrive by car and enter a world which is theirs by right, not by compromise…An unwavering focus on the wellbeing of the pupils and staff and a genuine spirit of collaboration have allowed architect and client to create an extraordinary building, full of hope.  It makes for architecture at its finest.”