The East Stand at Stadium Taranaki, designed by us, in collaboration with GHD, has been recognised Bronze in the Private, Public and Institutional Spaces category at the 2026 Best Design Awards.
The original East Stand was found to be earthquake-prone and closed in 2018. The plan was to repair it, until ground and foundation conditions ruled that out. Starting again was the harder path, but it let us design around how the stadium actually gets used: big fixtures a handful of times a year, and community sport every weekend in between.
We were appointed with GHD in 2021. Construction started the following year, and the stand was completed in April 2025.
The stand faces both ways, onto the main field and the outer fields. A junior game on a Saturday morning can use the changing rooms, toilets and food areas without anyone needing to open up the rest of the stadium. Seating suits a regular fixture and expands for a big one. Upstairs, the hospitality level looks over both fields and works as a venue in its own right. And the whole building is accessible.
The stand’s identity came from Ngāti Te Whiti and cultural lead Kerehama Waru Te Pū.It centres on water as the lifeblood of the region. The patterned glazing references rain, snow and water making its way down the maunga, inspired by its reflection in the Pouākai Tarn, and that thread carries inside through repeated motifs and wall graphics drawn from historical maps of local waterways.
Our director Glenn Brebner shared creative direction with Harry Street, and the recognition belongs to everyone behind it: the GHD team, Ngāti Te Whiti, and the Taranaki Stadium Trust. We’ve been working in Taranaki for a long time. It’s good to have helped build something here that gets used every week.
