2025 Awards

Apprentice Awards

Most Promising Apprentice:
Glass and Glazing

William Garrett
Gisborne Glass

Most Promising Apprentice:
Architectural Aluminium Joinery

Devon Scott
Design Windows Dunedin

Apprentice of the Year:
Glass and Glazing

Cameron Wright
Metro Performance Glass – Canterbury

Allan Sage Memorial Award:
Which recognizes apprentice excellence in the glazing industry

Cameron Wright
Metro Performance Glass – Canterbury

Apprentice of the Year:
Architectural Aluminium Joinery

Caleb Leddie
E13 Performance Windows

Supreme Award – Winner 2025

McNaughton Windows & Doors for Haumoana House

This year’s Supreme Award goes to a project that rises above a highly competitive field of outstanding entries. Seamlessly showcasing a refined understanding of proportion, materiality, and excellence in design and craft, Haumoana House stands out as a distinguished recipient of this award. In this remarkable residential project, the timber joinery does not merely serve a functional purpose; it becomes an intrinsic part of the building’s identity—enhancing both aesthetics and performance. The seamless connection between inside and out is framed and celebrated through the precision and excellence of every glazed aperture, demonstrating a deep commitment to detail, material integrity, and timeless design. What truly sets this project apart is demonstrated in the harmonious integration with the architectural form. The result is a strikingly beautiful and cohesive design that captures the essence of contemporary New Zealand architecture—where innovation, sustainability, and artistry converge. Haumoana House exemplifies craftsmanship at the highest level and is a masterclass in timber and glazing integration, and a deserving recipient of the 2025 Supreme Award.

Designing with Glass: Residential – Winner 2025

The Glassroom for My Little Pub

Celebrating innovation and craftsmanship, My Little Pub, a tiny relocatable building, exquisitely merges tradition with modern ingenuity, offering homeowners a bespoke retreat that reflects their heritage in a tangible and artistic form. Glass plays a starring role in elevating the charm of this unique structure, with custom elements designed to celebrate cultural identity. Through advanced techniques that emulate the beauty of traditional stained glass each piece harmonizes aesthetics with durability, ensuring resilience during transport. Textured and patterned glass selections cast a warm, glowing ambiance whilst the integration of toughened and laminated glass ensures lasting protection and structural integrity – a triumph in artistry and engineering that proves how glass can shape the essence of a space, balancing character, privacy, and timeless appeal.

Designing with Glass: Commercial – Winner 2025

Woods Glass for New Zealand International Convention Centre – Glass Fins

The New Zealand International Convention Centre’s glass fin façade is a triumph of architectural innovation and art, seamlessly integrating materiality, scale, transparency, and expert craftsmanship. Designed to capture light, texture, and movement throughout the day, the dynamic rhythm of the glass fins dynamically reflects light and present joyful colour, enhancing the building’s striking exterior whilst impacting the interior’s natural illumination. This project stands as a bold and refined expression of technical mastery, proving that exceptional glazing design and innovative solutions can elevate both beauty and function to extraordinary heights.

Designing with Glass: Art and Heritage – Winner 2025

The Glass Room for Mona Vale Bath House

In recognition of exceptional craftsmanship and dedication to heritage conservation, this award celebrates the outstanding restoration of an architectural gem. Testament to traditional glazing artistry, the restoration of the Mona Vale Bath House in Christchurch was painstakingly repaired after earthquake damage, ensuring its historical integrity and functionality remained intact. The project showcases rare, and somewhat declining, skills in traditional glazing and timber joinery construction methods. This restoration reinforces the value of traditional craftsmanship and skill whilst recognising an unwavering commitment to preserving heritage carefully reinstated in this cherished landmark. This award celebrates the high level of expertise in working with heritage buildings ensuring these invaluable skills remain alive—protecting and maintaining structures that define our collective past.

Design – Residential: Auckland – Winner 2025

Wight Aluminium for Thorne Residence

The Thorne Residence project is an exemplary and a worthy category winner, a notable characteristic of this project is the minimalist detailing, resulting in a seemingly effortless resolution of design intent. Offering expansive and dissolving thresholds between the interior and exterior spaces, the project presents a dynamically deceptive testimony of highly technical design solutions. The architectural intent to create the illusion of a glass wall cutting through the stair demonstrates the critical attention to detail required to successfully resolve technically challenging responses. Simple and clean lines of recessed and hidden detailing belie the technical expertise required in the finite accuracy and concise alignment to integrate with structure, form and interior elements. It is a symphony of collaborative design solution and craftsmanship, reflecting expertise of the designers, fabricators and installers.

Design – Residential: Northland, Waikato, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty – Winner 2025

Starke Windows and Doors for Country Elegance

In recognition of outstanding craftsmanship and innovation, this award celebrates a worthy project where country-style elegance seamlessly meets high-tech performance, enhanced by a sophisticated touch of minimalist restraint and detail. With a masterful blend of tradition and modernity, this winning entry exemplifies how refined aesthetics, and cutting-edge engineering can co-exist in perfect harmony. Every pane, frame, and junction speak to an unwavering commitment to quality, allowing light and landscape to merge effortlessly with architectural intent. This achievement sets a new benchmark in residential glass joinery, proving that timeless grace and advanced performance are not merely complementary but transformative when executed with skill and vision.

Design – Residential: Taranaki, Manawatu-Wanganui, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay – Winner 2025

McNaughton Windows & Doors for Haumoana House

In recognition of outstanding achievement in the design and manufacture of bespoke timber windows and joinery, Haumoana House exemplifies craftsmanship at the highest level. This project captures the essence of open-plan living through a masterfully executed transition between interior spaces, utilizing a diverse array of custom-designed elements including open-in doors, pivot windows, corner frames, sliding doors, sliding sashes, over-lights, and raking heads. The architectural language is unified by a consistently defined sill and transom line, meticulously maintained across multiple floor levels and joinery configurations—an impressive technical and aesthetic feat visible from both the interior and exterior. The seamless connection between inside and out is framed and celebrated through the precision and excellence of every glazed aperture, demonstrating a deep commitment to detail, material integrity, and timeless design.

Design – Residential: Wellington, Kapiti Coast – Winner 2025

Central Glass & Aluminium for Bay Hill Project

Perched on the dramatic cliffs of Island Bay, Wellington, the Bay Hill Project stands as a testament to a symphonic combination of glazing precision and architectural brilliance. This outstanding achievement in residential window and glass joinery design and manufacturing captures the breathtaking beauty of the Cook Strait, framing panoramic vistas with meticulous craftsmanship. The project seamlessly integrates high-performance glass products to maximise natural light, enhance thermal efficiency, and elevate the living experience. The collaboration between glazing and aluminium joinery showcases the extraordinary potential of glass in residential design, merging bold coastal aesthetics with functional elegance. The boundaries of contemporary architecture are redefined where precision meets artistry to create a home that is as resilient as it is stunning.

Design – Residential: Canterbury, Marlborough, Nelson – Winner 2025

Rylock Canterbury for Sumner House

The qualities in this project are awarded for outstanding craftsmanship and innovation demonstrated in this dynamic project, the integration of bespoke design within a complex architectural vision exemplifies excellence. The residence’s intricate geometries and gabled rooflines are met with meticulously detailed joinery that frames expansive views of the ocean, clock tower and the headland at the end of the beach. The window design enhances the home’s relationship with its environment, achieving a seamless dialogue between interior and exterior. Carefully tailored to the architect’s vision, the joinery contributes both aesthetically and functionally, offering clarity, light, and structural harmony. This project sets a benchmark in how window systems can elevate residential architecture through precision, sensitivity, and design brilliance.

Design – Residential: Otago, Southland, West Coast – Winner 2025

Design Windows Central Otago for Crown Range

For excellence in glazing and joinery, this architecturally striking home in New Zealand’s South Island stands as a testament to exceptional craftsmanship and innovative design. Seamlessly blending with its breathtaking natural surroundings, joinery within this residence maximizes panoramic views through expertly integrated, large-scale units that frame the landscape with precision and elegance. Custom detailing and a sleek, modern aesthetic elevate the home’s visual impact, while millimetre-perfect installation underscores the technical mastery involved. Through close collaboration and unwavering attention to detail, the result is a beautifully executed home that exemplifies the highest standards of quality and craftsmanship. This outstanding achievement reaffirms the artistry and expertise that define excellence in glazing and joinery.

Design – Commercial: North Island – Winner 2025

Woods Glass for One Saint Stephens

The striking façade composition, attention to technical detail and the masterful use of natural light, One St Stephens Ave exemplifies how glazing can elevate both aesthetics and functionality. The design not only creates breathtaking visual appeal to the exterior elevations, but the comfort of the interior spaces is optimized by energy efficiency whilst ensuring there is a strong visual connection from each apartment to the surrounding urban context. This apartment building stands as a testament to collaborative design synthesis between the architectural vision and the joinery craftsmanship, crucial to the delivery of a complex and succinctly integrated bespoke glazing solutions. The commitment to a high-quality product and technical excellence is evidenced in the precision with which this project has been executed.

Design – Commercial: South Island – Winner 2025

Woods Glass for ACC Dunedin – Glazed Facade

This project is an extraordinary example of an ambitious vision which authentically reflects the cultural identity of place through bespoke craftsmanship and sustainable building practices. Custom patterned joinery units reference traditional Māori poti , symbolising strength and arrival, but the joinery also plays a key role in reducing solar heat gain and improving energy efficiency. Integrated with seamless precision into the architectural intent of the façade, the high-performance glass, culturally unique design, scale and form of the glazing units demonstrates an excellence in the delivery of a truly unique design. The result is a visually striking, architectural landmark celebrating the union of a complex design vision, sustainable glazing technologies and excellence in craftsmanship. This project stands as a benchmark in architectural innovation, celebration the union of the architect’s vision, glazing technology, through the medium of glass.

Sustainability – Winner 2025

Woods Glass for One Tree Hill College, Ex-State House Deep Retrofit Project

Sustainability is more than environmental responsibility—it is about investing in the future of our industry and its workforce. The One Tree Hill College Ex-State House Deep Retrofit stands as a landmark achievement, redefining sustainability in window and glass joinery. This pioneering project is New Zealand’s first ex-state home repurposed to a Homestar 7-rated home built entirely by secondary school students—a milestone in sustainable construction. The One Tree Hill College project exemplifies how forward-thinking collaboration can not only improve energy efficiency but also empower future tradespeople, ensuring that sustainability is not just about what we build, but who we inspire. But beyond their technical contribution, the entrant embraced the Gateway Programme, providing hands-on work experience to local students. This initiative led to apprenticeships for three promising students in 2024, helping to shape the next generation of skilled professionals. A worthy category winner for their exemplary leadership in sustainability and workforce development.

Innovation – Winner 2025

ASSA ABLOY for Yale Unity Slim Smart Lock

In recognition of outstanding innovation, the Yale Unity® Slim Smart Lock stands out for its originality in meeting the bespoke needs of a growing market. Designed to seamlessly integrate with a wide range of hinged doors, from grand front entries to narrow aluminium stiles, this cutting-edge lock exemplifies both security and convenience. The Yale Unity® Slim Smart Lock redefines keyless entry, offering homeowners effortless control via the Yale Home App. The multipoint locking mechanism ensures enhanced safety without the need for traditional keys. Its compatibility with various handle types, available in any powder coat colour, makes it a versatile solution tailored to local market preferences. A remarkable blend of smart technology and sleek design, the Yale Unity® Slim Smart Lock sets a new standard for functionality and user experience, making it a worthy recipient of this award.