A+W NZ Awarded Inaugural NZIA John Sutherland Practice Award!

Congratulations to every single A+W NZ member and volunteer who has contributed over our 11 years to date - A+W NZ has been awarded the inaugural Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects John Sutherland Practice Award!

At the National Awards event on Friday 18 November 2022, the John Sutherland Practice Award was introduced by members of the Sutherland family in honour and remembrance of the wonderful influence and legacy that John Sutherland has had on the profession. This award has been added as the fifth NZIA Named Award, and A+W NZ are very grateful to be the first recipients of this important award.

See the Nov/Dec 2022 Architecture NZ magazine for coverage, and Architecture Now.

See also the editorial in the Feb 2023 issue of Architecture NZ by Chris Barton, where he discusses his take on the awards night in November 2022.

From Chris Barton's editorial;

"The well-deserved inaugural recipient of the newly created John Sutherland Practice Award – Architecture+Women.NZ – highlighted another area where the profession is lagging. The organisation’s core aims are to achieve visibility and inclusiveness for women within the industry and to create equality across the profession. Receiving the award, one of the organisation’s co-chairs Lynda Simmons said: “We are very honoured to receive this award and want to add a reminder that you, the industry players, shouldn’t think that you are all off the hook – we will continue to be a thorn in the side of the profession”.

Following is a transcript of what was said at the NZIA award function (18 November 2022) on behalf of A+W NZ by Lynda Simmons;

A+W NZ want to acknowledge John Sutherland himself, and his insistence that we constantly reflect on HOW we practice, as well as what we produce.

We believe that excellent architecture is not merely the measure of excellent objects, but also of the care, respect, and nurtured skills of the groups of people making those objects.

We also acknowledge and thank Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZIA for creating this award in his honour - one that recognises the continual work that goes into maintaining an architectural community with high technical skills, high people skills, high design skills and high ethics.

We love that this award so completely aligns with our own ethics, and with our aim of removing barriers that currently exist in the profession for so many of our community, well beyond gender.

The values that underpin this award are similar to the values that we prioritised when designing our own awards programme in 2014, and we hope that our effect may have rubbed off on the NZIA in the establishment of this important award.

Thank you John, and thank you NZIA.

But the people that we want to thank the most are the many, many members who have given so much of their time and expertise to this organisation over our nearly 12 years.

This piece of paper is not actually with me because I wanted to read out a long speech, but because it has a very long list of names on it. We couldn’t bring everyone here with us physically, so it is important to bring them here in spirit, acknowledging the incredible work done by a huge and amazing team of unpaid volunteers. Please be patient as I read out some of the names of these important team contributors, and as I do, I want you to imagine them on stage here with us, the team of present and past Co-Chairs and Co-Founders (Julie Wilson, Megan Rule, Elisapeta Heta, Divya Purushotham, Lindley Naismith, Anner Chong, Maria Chen and Lynda Simmons);

• Ysabelle Empiso
• Nicole Allan
• Theja Jayalath
• Sukshma Paranjpe
• Kitty Fan
• Sarah Treadwell
• Lauren Speer
• Hannah Sharp
• Chia-Lin Sara Lee
• Marianne Calvelo
• Christina van Bohemen
• Wing Chan
• Kayley Feng
• Janice Au
• Pam Sando
• Siran Li
• Bojana Kavrakovska
• Peggy Russell
• Ariana Pia
• Kirsty Jones
• Bridget Lensen
• Amanda Kissling
• Chloe Coles
• Lucy Treep
• Rebecca Green
• Aimee Lee
• Ornella Priotti
• Ainsley O’Connell
• Bianca Maneva
• Sarah Bookman
• Bron Philips
• Courtney Vuicakau
• Renee Woods
• Hilary Finn
• Jane Rooney
• Brita Corbett
• Anne Salmond
• Virginia Barlowe
• Emily Batchelor
• Jessica Short
• Abigail Hurst
• Victoria Streeter
• Wendy Shacklock
• Raukura Turei
• Ariane Craig-Smith
• Raina Singh
• Vanessa Coxhead
• Gaelle Domingue
• Suchi Undevia
• ...and all of the many, many current team members - I haven’t even got to the recent or current teams yet - you know who you are. This is a message to them - please keep doing it, keeping our core philosophies and intentions at the heart of every decision you make.

We are very honoured to receive this award and want to add a reminder that that you, the industry players, shouldn’t think that you are all off the hook - we will continue to be a thorn in the side of the profession!

John asked HOW we can practice better, and so do we.
What an absolute honour.

Related media:

Waipapa Taumata Rau the University of Auckland article