Formerly an Air Force Base Headquarters, built in 1939, MAKE have transformed this heritage office into a fresh community hub in the thriving up-and-coming neighbourhood of Hobsonville Point. This new public building is set to provide community focused activities, services and programmes, designed to promote the overall wellbeing and connectedness of the family-orientated Hobsonville Point community.

We were constantly mindful of the importance of retaining the memory of the building, its architectural integrity and Art Deco aesthetics, and its former function of a NZRAF base. In our current age, there is an obsession over ‘newness,’ for demolition, and fast-paced construction. So it was refreshing to design for a harmony of past and present, a design of constraint and purpose, a careful curation of materials and new architectural interventions, that would each pay respect to the heritage context and the incoming intentions for the space.