Te Tumu (New Zealand International Convention Centre)

Few interiors carry the weight of this one. Te Tumu, the name gifted to the New Zealand International Convention Centre by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, is a building that functions as something beyond a venue. Winner of the Civic category at the 2026 Interior of the Year Awards, the project was led by Warren and Mahoney as architects with Woods Bagot directing the front of house interiors. Together, they have produced one of the most significant pieces of civic design the country has seen.

The guiding concept, “One Language, Many Voices,” frames the interior as both unified and pluralistic, drawing from te reo Māori as a shared cultural foundation while acknowledging the diversity of people and stories the building hosts. The material language is evocative rather than literal: timber, stone, wool textiles, and metal surfaces draw on the qualities of New Zealand’s landscape through contrast, texture, light, and tactility. As visitors move upward through the building, spaces shift from grounded and textural at ground level to expansive and luminous above, mirroring a journey through landscape.

Interface’s Human Nature carpet planks in Nickel, specified across the main circulation areas of the upper floors, sit naturally within this material philosophy. The Nickel colourway carries the muted, organic tones of pebbles and bark, extending the project’s biophilic language underfoot as the spaces open upward. Specified across Human Nature styles 810, 840, and 850, the range of constructions allows for subtle variation in texture while maintaining the cohesive, understated palette the design demands. For a building of this scale and public significance, durability was equally important as aesthetics. Interface’s proven performance in high-traffic commercial environments provided the confidence that the flooring will hold its integrity across the volume of visitors a venue of this nature receives, without compromising the considered material story above it.