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Hamilton’s BNZ Theatre

24 March 2026

Overlooking the Waikato River, the BNZ Theatre delivers a landmark cultural venue that honours Kirikiriroa Hamilton’s performing arts legacy while showcasing international-standard theatre design in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

The building features indoor and outdoor gathering and impromptu performance spaces, including a multi-level riverside foyer with cantilevering timber staircases connecting to an outdoor ātea (courtyard) and Embassy Park, all linked to hospitality venues fronting the river and Victoria Street.

The use of CLT (provided by Red Stag TimberLab) provided numerous benefits, including:

  • Programme acceleration
  • Cost savings
  • Improved sequencing
  • Carbon reduction
  • Sustainability
  • Acoustic and structural advantages
  • Fire safety

Read the case study

WoodWorks Issue – 24 Mar 2026

Welcome

Greetings from your WoodWorks team. This week we showcase two key mass timber projects with considerable local input both in professional services and engineered wood design and mass timber supply. Mass timber is now gaining real traction in certain types of built environment and retirement villages for Summerset Group would be close to the top of that list. Mass timber has also played (no pun intended) a supporting role in the new BNZ Performing Arts Theatre recently opened in Hamilton. It replaced the Founders Theatre, built in 1962, which had a 50-year life. Speaking of popular mass timber building typologies, and looking across the Tasman, Monash University in Clayton has once again chosen CLT for a hybrid design for another student accommodation building project on their Clayton campus in Melbourne. Finally and naturally, the Liverpool School of Architecture is the ideal showcase for some stunning examples of engineered wood performing in a starring role. Happy masstimbering for another Tuesday!

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