Sustainability

Sustainability has been a core value of Collingridge and Smith for more than ten years. For us, sustainability means delivering the purpose of the building through the integration of its cultural heritage, its environmental setting and its economic boundaries.

In 2007 our director Phil Smith was invited to be an assessor for the New Zealand Green Building Council and in 2008 was appointed as their technical advisor, leading the team who created the NZ Green Star Education rating tool. Since then Phil has also become a NZGBC Homestar Practitioner, and Michael Wang, one of our Architectural Designers, became a Homestar Assessor in 2019.

We have continued to innovate in environmentally sustainable design, with our design for the Te Mirumiru early childhood centre in Kawakawa receiving numerous international and national awards, culminating in 2014 with the World Green Building Council’s Leadership in Sustainable Design Award, the only building in the whole of the Asia Pacific region to receive such a title.

In 2016, we established a research partnership with Massey University in New Zealand, to understand what built environment/s make great human buildings that are sustainable economically, socially and environmentally.