MIT Manukau & Transport Interchange / Warren and Mahoney

Architects

Warren and Mahoney
Location

Manukau Station Road, Manukau, Auckland 2104, New Zealand
Project Architect

Mike Jackson
Area

20000.0 sqm
Project Year

2014
Photographs

Simon Devitt, Patrick Reynolds

Project Designer

Blair Johnston
Builder

Hawkins
Structural Engineer

Holmes Consulting Group
Hydraulic Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Electrical Engineer

Aurecon
Landscape Consultant

Boffa Miskell
Interior (Hard Fit-out)

Warren and Mahoney
Loose Furniture

MIT (Hayley-Anne Brown)
Lighting

Aurecon
Quantity Surveyor

WT Partnership
Geotehcnical Consultant, Traffic Consultant

Opus
Planning Consultant

Beca
Fire & Safety Consultant

Holmes Fire & Safety
Acoustics

Marshall Day Acoustics
Project Manager, Programming Consultant

Beca

Text description provided by the architects. MIT Manukau integrates two essential elements: a 20,000m² learning facility for the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) and a new Auckland Transport railway station. By seamlessly weaving together education and transport, MIT Manukau represents a complete departure from conventional education design.

The people of South Auckland enrol in tertiary education at a rate only half the national average. MIT’s mission is to open up the possibility of study in the minds of their community. Correspondingly, MIT Manukau is designed to eliminate barriers to entry and invite people to engage with the possibilities of learning. By integrating the campus with the public transport system, commuters entering the building are exposed to the heart of MIT and its programmes, consequently reaching the widest possible audience.

The ground floor expresses an open invitation to all who approach – a feeling magnified by the soaring six storey atrium. Learning spaces themselves are not formal. Instead, they are flexible, open and designed for student interaction.

Aesthetically, the building has the responsibility to reflect the values and aspirations of MIT while also providing an appropriate response to the community’s cultural diversity. The design response has generated a structurally integrated approach incorporating the direct use of materials, finishes and environmental techniques. The interaction of raking ‘diamond brace’ columns, transverse external steel beam lines, and external horizontal sun shading produces a complex but repeating pattern that is evocative of not one, but many cultures and many points of view.

Internally, the architecture is conceived as a simple framework - a ‘coathanger’ for students to dress with their own identities, to hang the cloak of the community on. It is a very adaptable, open space, incorporating warm timber and vibrant colour; built with long term flexibility to evolve with both the identity of the community and contemporary educational pedagogy.