| 89 T T Hugh de Lacy Education sector firm’s main focus Birch Pyne Architecture has done many projects in the education sector. ARCHITECTURE Birch Pyne Architecture There’s an element of master and student in the relationship between Keith Pyne and Robert Birch, the principals of Birch Pyne Architecture, an Invercargill and Dunedin off-shoot of the long-established and nationwide SSL Consulting. Keith was an architectural lecturer at Southland Institute of Technology when Robert completed his architectural diploma there in 2005, then went straight into employment at SSL’s architectural division. Based in Invercargill, Keith was a founding director of a local company servicing the education sector, a company launched in 1989 under the Labour Government’s Tomorrow’s Schools programme, which terminated the old education boards. This company eventually merged with the SSL group in the early 2000s. “In the early 2010s, Robert got the opportunity to move from Invercargill up to Dunedin to establish a second office there,” Keith says. “This was a successful venture with Robert growing the team in Dunedin to the skilled and experienced group they are today.” After almost three decades in architecture, specialising in the education sector, Keith took a sabbatical to work for the Southern Institute of Technology on its architecture and construction programmes, building practitioner licensing and Architectural Designers of NZ (ADNZ) membership. In 2022, he was honoured with the inaugural Te Whakapono Award for individuals that have made an exceptional contribution to the ADNZ. Returning to architecture in 2002, Keith and Robert came together to launch Birch and Pyne Architecture and Consulting a year later. Robert took over the day-to-day running of both the Dunedin and Invercargill offices, with Keith remaining the face of the Invercargill venture and bringing his wealth of experience back to the south. While the education sector remains the main client base for Birch and Pyne, there is renewed energy for expanding its operations into the private residential and commercial sectors, as well as providing specialist consulting services. “We’ve always been into education for either the ministry or the schools themselves, and it’s work that offers great architectural variety, from new school-rooms and halls to things like replacing coal boilers with woodchip ones,” Keith says. While the establishment of the firm has come at a time when the present government’s cut-backs in the education sector have seen delays in a range of school building works, Keith says many of those projects are going to have to be completed at some stage, and are slowly coming back on-stream. The firm’s current focus is on the Capital Works Division of the Ministry of Education’s (MoE’s) re-development of a classroom block and associated facilities at Cromwell Primary School. “The project includes re-modelling of and alterations to an existing classroom block, and incorporates other facilities, such as those required for learning support needs,” Keith says,/ Birch and Pyne is now busy with several projects that had been held up but are now coming on-stream. “Working with the MoE’s specialised and specific requirements in excess of the Building Code means the Birch and Pyne team is continually adapting, updating and applying knowledge to both education and commercial projects.” “We’ve always been into education for either the ministry or the schools themselves, and it’s work that offers great architectural variety....” We are pleased to provide structural engineering services for Birch Pyne Craig Brown 54 Liddel Street, Invercargill 9810 PO Box 6004, Invercargill 9841 Phone 03 214 9015 Email info@cbbuilders.co.nz www.cbbuilders.co.nz Mobile 021 759 787 Quality Workmanship Guaranteed
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