TE WANANGA A IHENGA

Rotorua, New Zealand

Project Description

CREDITS: APR Architects

The Te Wànanga a Ihenga building at The Waiariki School of Forestry and Primary Industries provides quality education and vocational services. The school was established over 60 years ago by the New Zealand Government to train students in plantation forest management, sawmilling and wood manufacturing. In keeping with the forest focus of this organisation, this new facility is a great example of modern timber design.

Jacqui Heaton from APR says, “There are a number of curved glulam and LVL beams on this project. The roof is curved, formed with the LVL rafters at different pitches. All timber was supplied precut and all components easily fit together on site. The exposed LVL veneers on columns and beams provide an impressive visual effect. The rawness of the LVL product was not a dominating effect in the building, as was initially thought might be the case.”

Manufacture of the Glulam beams & fabrication of the LVL components for this project was carried out at the TimberLab (previously McIntosh) factory. Careful pre-assembly of the column and beam components assisted in the accuracy of on-site installation. Individual components were up to 18m long. The mixture of curved Glulam beams exposed in the main entrance as well as the functional LVL enhance this already awesome educational facility.