Oruku Landing - Events Centre
Concept Design

The key building of the Oruku Landing at the eastern end of the site is the Whangārei Events Centre. It is designed as a versatile venue accommodating up to 950 people. Featuring a double-height, glazed entrance leading to a foyer with a mezzanine level café and ground-floor administration, it aims to host conferences, trade shows, and performances. A crucial requirement for this project is to create a building that brings people together and celebrates its identity, local history, and values of Whangārei’s residents. This is achieved through the pragmatic use of the enclosure (designed to be durable, robust, and thermally and acoustically insulated) and through the façade’s material and structure.

Working in collaboration with Matakohe Architecture + Urbanism, portions of the external envelope have been enhanced to capture this connection to place in a defined way. Including; ornate rain and sunscreens (in the form of open weave pattern – kete kai), the main plaza’s use of “patterned” glass to the glazed space above the main entry, patterned weathering steel around the service rooms and an open weave geo-grid (open fishing net weave – kupenga) for a green wall to the north side of the building (providing visual connection to the pohutukawa to the edge of Riverside Drive and connecting to the landscape leading up to Parihaka’s summit).