Awards era: reading the citations carefully

This address has been on the site since 2015. The original page is long gone; this is a new essay on the same subject, written by the site editors in October 2026.

In the year after it opened, the Clyde Quay Wharf redevelopment collected a run of awards. Building awards are often quoted loosely, though, and a “supreme award” from one programme means something quite different from a “supreme award” from another. This note sets out what we could verify, and then offers a short guide to reading award citations for any building.

What the redevelopment received

We were able to confirm three pieces of 2015 recognition from published award lists and trade coverage.

• Registered Master Builders Commercial Project Awards. In May 2015 the Clyde Quay Wharf Redevelopment was named the supreme winner of the 2015 New Zealand Commercial Project Awards run by Registered Master Builders. These awards are about construction: the quality of the build, how the project was delivered, and the work of the main contractor and its team. LT McGuinness was the main contractor.
• Property Council New Zealand Property Industry Awards. At the 2015 Property Council New Zealand Rider Levett Bucknall Property Industry Awards the project received the Rider Levett Bucknall Supreme Award. Property Council awards look at a development as a property, weighing economic performance alongside design and construction, sustainability, user satisfaction and contribution to the community. Trade coverage at the time also reported a category win for the project at the same awards.
• New Zealand Architecture Awards. Later in 2015 the New Zealand Institute of Architects included “Clyde Quay Wharf Apartment Redevelopment” by Athfield Architects among the winners in the Housing Multi Unit category of its national awards. NZIA awards are peer-judged by architects and focus on design quality.

Other honours have been attributed to the project in various places. Where we could not trace a claim to an award list or contemporary report, we have left it out.

Three different juries, three different questions

The interesting thing about that list is how little the three awards overlap. A builders’ award asks whether something was built well. A property industry award asks whether it works as an investment and a place. An architecture award asks whether it is good design. A project can win one and be ignored by the others, and plenty do.

So when you read that a building “won a supreme award”, the first question is: whose? The second is: in which year, and against what field? Programmes change their categories over time, and a supreme award in a strong year can mean more than one in a thin year.

How to read a citation

Most programmes publish a short citation from the judges. These are worth reading closely, for a few reasons.

Look at what is praised. Citations tend to name specific strengths: the public space, the detailing, the delivery under difficult conditions, the reuse of old fabric. Those are the parts the judges thought were exceptional. If a citation praises the construction programme and says nothing about how the building feels to use, that is information too.

Notice what is not said. Judges rarely criticise in public, but silence can speak. An architecture citation that skips over the interiors, or a property award citation that talks only about the public realm, tells you where the jury’s attention went.

Check the category. A category win in multi-unit housing is judged against other housing projects, not against the year’s best public buildings. That is not a lesser achievement, just a different one.

Find the original. Award claims drift as they are repeated. The NZIA awards pages list current and past programmes, and other awards bodies publish their own winners lists. Going back to the source is the only reliable way to know what was actually awarded.

Why it matters on the waterfront

For a building on public land and in full public view, awards are part of the public record of how the city judged it. They sit alongside other assessments. The 2020 heritage addendum report for Greater Wellington, for instance, credited the building with architectural value while concluding that the wharf and building together did not meet the bar for heritage listing. Reading both kinds of document side by side gives a fuller picture than any single trophy.

For the story of the opening itself, see When the wharf reopened to the city. For the design ideas the juries were responding to, see Long, low, and light.