Rydges Hotel (formerly Holiday Inn), Wellington
Winner NZIA Local Award 2007
Built on a narrow city site en route from the Railway Station to the city, Rydges Hotel (formerly the Holiday Inn) was Wellington’s first purpose-built star-rated hotel for over 20 years and sits at the cross walk between the Parliamentary precinct and the waterfront.
The building takes the form of a large podium up to four levels high, with a slender accommodation tower rising from the centre. Angled setbacks are utilised to gain stunning sea or parliament views in all of the hotel’s 280 rooms, while full height precast concrete ribbed fins, angled towards the views, provide valuable privacy and sunshading. The interior design of the rooms employs rich autumnal colours and natural textures to imbue them with a sense of warmth and luxury, with frosted glass walls allowing light through to the bathroom and kitchenette.
A stylish lobby and contemporary restaurant, featuring a backlit alabaster-clad bar and silvery curtains of light chain mail surrounding individual booths, occupy the ground floor public spaces. The hotel also includes a pool, gym, spa and sauna and conference facilities.
While the building is conceptually and structurally very simple, the sawtooth façade varies over the height of the building to create a middle and top in the classic tower manner. Finely articulated curtain wall glazing emphases the slender nature of the building. The large over-sailing roofs cap off a building that, avoiding the blocky and featureless outline common to many hotels, forms an elegant silhouette on Wellington’s skyline.
This project was completed in association with Peddle Thorp Architects.
Client: Melview Developments Ltd.
