Tamahere Arts Centre
A Creative Hub for Tamahere Country Club
The Tamahere Arts Centre is a purpose-built creative space located within the Tamahere Country Club retirement village in the Waikato, developed by the Sanderson Group. Positioned prominently on Tamahere Drive, the building forms an important public-facing element of the village while transforming the memory of seven mature oak trees that once occupied the site into its defining architectural structure. The centre is designed to enhance wellbeing and social connection by providing a dedicated space where residents and local artists can gather and create together. Activities include painting, sewing, floristry, pottery workshops, exhibitions, and small group classes, with a flexible and adaptable layout that supports a wide range of creative uses.
1 / 6Replacing a Cramped Studio
The centre replaces a small, poorly ventilated art space tucked inside the original village clubhouse. In its place is a generous, light-filled studio built specifically for creative work and community life, with room to host workshops for up to twenty people.
The space doubles as a small gallery and social hub, used for exhibitions, opening nights, and informal gatherings as much as for day-to-day classes.
2 / 6A Building Shaped by Story
The design draws on the story behind the name Tamahere, a Māori narrative of a maiden crossing a river with her child tied to her back. That story shaped the building's layout: a sequence of spaces moving from making to display, with a central threshold marking the symbolic crossing between creative process and finished work. A small water feature at this point in the building references the river in the story.
3 / 6Timber as the Architectural Framework
Timber carries both the cultural narrative and the building's identity. The site was once home to seven large oak trees, some of which still stand in the surrounding parkland, and the building's primary structure is built from large, expressed New Zealand oak trusses that carry that memory into the architecture. Read figuratively, the structure echoes the child carried on the mother's back, with strong brick-clad timber walls supporting the trusses above.
Timber was also the practical choice. It's a renewable material with low embodied carbon, in keeping with the village's environmental goals, and it creates a calmer, warmer interior that suits the creative work happening inside.
4 / 6Timber as the Architectural Framework
Oak veneer joinery continues the material language through the interior, including in the floor treatment that marks the symbolic river threshold. Outside, the oak trusses sit within a cedar roof form that nods to the tree canopy above, with the detailing showing off what timber can do when it's worked carefully. A macrocarpa pergola extends the material out into the landscape, tying the building to the water feature and the grounds beyond.
Built around timber, careful detailing, and a strong sense of place, Tamahere Arts Centre gives Tamahere Country Club a durable, inspiring space for creativity, wellbeing, and connection.
5 / 6Craft and Landscape in the Details
Oak veneer joinery continues the material language through the interior, including in the floor treatment that marks the symbolic river threshold. Outside, the oak trusses sit within a cedar roof form that nods to the tree canopy above, with the detailing showing off what timber can do when it's worked carefully. A macrocarpa pergola extends the material out into the landscape, tying the building to the water feature and the grounds beyond.
Built around timber, careful detailing, and a strong sense of place, Tamahere Arts Centre gives Tamahere Country Club a durable, inspiring space for creativity, wellbeing, and connection.
6 / 6Project Details
Project Type: Commercial & Public, Arts Centre
Year Built: 2025
Location: Tamahere, Waikato
Client: The Sanderson Group
Architect: First Light Studio
Interiors: First Light Studio & The Sanderson Group
Builder: The Sanderson Group
Photography: Amanda Aitken
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Looking for an architect in the Waikato?
First Light Studio designs commercial, public, and residential projects across New Zealand, including the Waikato region. We bring the same attention to materiality and storytelling to community and commercial buildings as we do to homes.
