3D print Te Papa Tongarewa
A free, printable model of Te Papa and the water, roads and mid-rise buildings around it, generated from real map data in your browser.
Free, in your browser. Exports a slicer-ready 3MF.
About Te Papa Tongarewa
Te Papa Tongarewa, usually shortened to Te Papa, is New Zealand's national museum, in Wellington. The Māori name translates literally as 'container of treasures'. The museum came about when the National Art Gallery was merged with the National Museum of New Zealand, after which it opened in 1998, with the official opening on February 14, 1998.
The main building stands on reclaimed land on Cable Street that once belonged to the Wellington Harbour Board. Pete Bossley of Jasmax Architects designed it, and Fletcher Construction built it. Its design process followed bicultural principles drawn from the Treaty of Waitangi. The floor area is 36,000 square meters (390,000 sq ft), and construction had cost NZ$300 million by the time it opened. Six floors hold exhibitions, cafés and gift shops, and outside there are artificial caves, native bushes and wetlands.
A five-story Museum Hotel occupied the site before. In 1993 it was moved 200 meters (660 feet) down and across the road, and the soft reclaimed land was then compacted to a depth of 16 meters by dropping heavy weights onto it. Earthquake strengthening was achieved with base isolation, a technology developed in New Zealand. The building won regional awards from the New Zealand Institute of Architects in 1999 and was voted the country's 'Building of the Decade' in 2000.
How it prints
Make this print opens the generator on a 600 m square around the landmark. Buildings print at close to true scale, so the landmark grows with the print size.
| Print size | Landmark height | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| 160 mm default | 7 mm | 1:3,750 |
| 200 mm | 9 mm | 1:3,000 |
| 256 mm | 11 mm | 1:2,344 |
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North
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East
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South
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West
- Many small roof details
- Small rectangular roof panels and other details sit across the broad roofs. Print friendly adapts them to the print scale; Full detail keeps them, which suits a larger print.
- Fins on a low, wide building
- Vertical fins and a curved wing break up the low walls. A bigger print size keeps more of the fins, and layers of 0.12 to 0.16 mm keep the edges crisp.
- One piece with the ground
- Te Papa Tongarewa is joined to the ground in the exported file, and the four-side check found no floating parts, so nothing needs gluing.
- Pick the detail for your nozzle
- In the Buildings settings, set Landmark detail to Print friendly to adapt thin parts and small details to the print scale. Full detail keeps every modeled feature, for larger prints or a finer nozzle.
- Colors
- Buildings, roads, water and ground arrive as separate filament slots in the 3MF. Te Papa Tongarewa takes the building color.
- File format
- You get a 3MF for Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer or PrusaSlicer. Any of them can save it as STL if you need one.
About this model
Te Papa Tongarewa is one of more than 2,300 landmark models in Mini Skyline. They are made with AI, and each one is checked from four sides in its real surroundings before release. Everything around it is built from OpenStreetMap and Overture map data. If you would rather print the shape from map data, turn off Landmark models in the Buildings settings.
Common questions
Is there a Te Papa Tongarewa STL I can download?
Mini Skyline builds the file for you in your browser and exports 3MF, which every major slicer opens. If you need an STL, open the 3MF in your slicer and export it from there.
How big can I print it?
Any print size from 40 mm across. Te Papa Tongarewa grows with the print: about 7 mm tall on the default 160 mm print. For a model larger than your printer bed, Project Mode splits the area into tiles.
Is it free?
Yes. Generation runs in your browser, with no account and nothing behind a paywall.
