The Ironbank Building by RTA Studio

The Ironbank Building is a modern building which has a unique look designed by RTA Studio. The building is located in the historic area at the edge of Auckland (New Zealand) CBD. The Ironbank Building is Ecologically Sustainably Designed and has received the first 5 Star As–Built Greenstar rating from the New Zealand Green Building Council. At the front of the site addresses the high street which is dominated by a rich mixture of Victorian and Edwardian buildings. Most of these buildings have fallen into varying states of disrepair over recent decades. This building has a strong contrast belies the urban condition of this high street against the parallel service street to the rear of the site. The back street is primarily a service lane and has remained largely undeveloped and unplanned through its evolution. Its streetscape is therefore architecturally unconsidered and haphazard in its appearance.

The Ironbank Unique Building by RTA Studio

In a gesture to the finely scaled historical neighbourhood, RTA Studio have sought to fragment the building form to alleviate the potential mass associated with a medium sized office building. Hence, 5 towers are further fragmented vertically to articulate the composition of stacked office and retail spaces gathered into a socially sustainable working community.

Interior Design The Ironbank Unique Building by RTA Studio

Interior Design The Ironbank Modern Building by RTA StudioDesign

The Ironbank Building understood as a manifestation of cross-contamination of the two contrasting street conditions. The high street being concerned with notions of presentation, display, etiquette and heritage, while the service lane is concerned with servicing, delivery, disorder and utility. The building has taken the opportunity to address a transition between these two street conditions. The building presents a glass reinforced concrete (GRC) façade as a ‘veil’ to the high street edge screening the site’s interior. This screen has been conceived as an abstraction of the historical facades adjacent.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 12:03 am and is filed under Architecture. Tags: Architecture, Auckland, fragment the building, Ironbank Building, mixture of Victorian and Edwardian buildings, modern building, New Zealand, office and retail spaces, office building, RTA Studio, The Ironbank Building, the New Zealand Green Building Council, unique building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.