News
Queenstown firm’s big building award
The Queenstown branch of Amalgamated Builders (ABL) has struck two golds at the New Zealand Commercial Building Awards.
The long-established company won the tourism and leisure project and under-$2 million categories for building the $2 million Sculptillusion Gallery at Wanaka’s well-known Puzzling World attraction.
The geometrically-complex building, Puzzling World’s fifth and largest illusion, utilises visual trickery including a turned-on tap that seems to float in air, benches that appear to have no stands and columns that become people.
ABL quantity surveyor Brett Squire says the awards mean a lot to his firm, attraction owners Heidi Landsborough and Duncan Spear and Sarah Scott Architects’ Barry Condon.
“Aside from a very cold construction site, the ground froze which affected the logic of the build and the way we continued.
“The awards are testimony to how excellent on-site communication with the owners, builders and architects, coupled with great vision and design, can achieve outstanding buildings.”
ABL’s Queenstown branch won five awards at last year’s NZ Commercial Building Awards.
