The new Nairn Building at Mount Albert Grammar School is home to the Social Sciences Department, an upgraded library facility, and also serves as the base for Te Puna o Wairaka.
The whare and feature sun shading louvre display behind it, were intended to be impossible to ignore, with a striking design of colour that sees a powerful and culturally significant shade of red for the whare delivered through a Metwood Australian Cedar finish, set against the multi-coloured backdrop from those feature sun shading louvres on the glazed north elevation.
A mixture of Insol’s Solaris 50 and Solaris 75 aluminium battens were used for the rainscreen. Fixed vertically at 100mm centres via a hidden fixing detail, the closely grouped battens create strong visual lines, the intensity of the shadows from the gaps reinforcing the aesthetic and calling your attention to it. The soffit to the Whare and main building use Solaris 100 battens in the same Metwood Australian Cedar finish, continuing the established look of the building and providing contrast to the glazed entranceway.
