Female led phenomenon
WORDS Hannah Harte PHOTOS Murray Hedwig
The opportunity for Ōtautahi to evolve in the post-earthquake years has been signified beautifully in the development of projects that update and enhance the visual identity of this city. RM Designs, founded 25 years ago by Bernie O’Fagan, is pleased to have made its mark on the cityscape. The most recent is Hornby Club.
Avenues visited the team at RM Designs to discuss their largest project to date and the steps that led them to visualise Hornby Club. Rachel Mechen, Laura Goddard, and ‘Office Overlord’ Jodie White are the leadership team behind this award-winning architecture and interior design business.
Bealey Lodge, a tourist accommodation facility, was the first post-quake building to utilise mass timber, in particular CLT (cross-laminated timber). There was a steep learning curve involved in working with the material, which came to assist in the construction of many future projects, reflects Rachel, who leads architecture.
Following the success of Bealey Lodge, which won a NZ Timber innovation award, RM and their engineering partner Engco worked alongside Kainga Ora on social housing projects with mass timber. The focus was to construct rapid builds to a higher standard than ever before, expanding into sleek multi-storey apartments with the intention of “trying to do as much as we can offsite, so we can really condense that timeline down on site,” says Rachel.
They also recently completed the development of Peke Waihanga’s (NZ Artificial Limb Service) new facility at Burwood Hospital.
“[Peke Waihanga] loved the timber, loved the space. These clients are part of their family; they are with them from the moment they lose a limb and remain with them all their lives – [they are] wanting to provide a welcoming, nice space at a time of great difficulty,” Jodie states, with a clear love and passion for the project.
The team at RM are smitten with this environmentally sustainable wood, which can be carbon-zero. Engineer Julian Addington of ENGCO Consulting Engineers works closely with RM on many projects and elaborates, “Mass timber is one of the cleanest structural options we have at the moment, and Hornby [Club] proves it can also be cost-effective when it’s done right.”
Bringing together everything learned from these builds, including the construction of Papanui Club from scratch (which won a Gold in the 2017 NZ Commercial Projects Awards), the expansion of Hornby Club was completed in 2021, creating a new club for its members and the community-based groups that use it.
The main challenge of creating the Hornby Club was the vast scale – around 2,500 square metres of new mass timber building connected to roughly 3,000 square metres of refurbished building. Laura Goddard oversees the creative realm at RM, and this spatial process was hers to solve. Her role included navigating the exterior of the building and developing the interior look of spatial layout, best placement of facilities, all the way down to every fitting and finish.
She admires the work and philosophy of architect Alvar Aalto.
“Our clients are the ones inhabiting these spaces. There’s no point in designing a fabulous-looking property that’s not actually appropriate for the user; a building is not a building unless it’s inhabited. Hornby Club is a pretty special one; obviously, there were challenges along the way, but the end result has spoken for itself. Seeing the families occupy it has been the best thing. We really wanted to break the stereotype of clubs by creating a lot of cubic height in the main space to make it feel as bright and open as possible.”
Jodie says one of the key factors in the project was the relationship she led with Contract Construction, saying that their problem-solving, timeliness, and quality of work were second to none. Hornby Club being awarded a 2023 NZ Commercial Projects Gold Award is a recognition of this.
Hornby Club has increased its membership and particularly enjoys the company of younger members and families while providing great amenities for community use.