Innholdsfortegnelse for September-October 2021 i Architecture NZ

A FOURTH DEATH – A 14-YEAR-OLD BOY visiting on 29 July with his family – from Vessel, the 16-storey, 46m-tall, staircase sculpture at Hudson Yards in Manhattan. The tragedy has seen the honeycomb structure, variously derided as the “colossal shawarma”, the “stairway to nowhere”, a “giant’s wastepaper basket” and a “pineapple thing”, now labelled a “suicide machine”. Amidst calls for the $US200-million tourist attraction opened in 2019 to be demolished, its designers, Heatherwick Studio, released a statement: “We’re distraught about the news of last week’s tragedy. Working with our partners at Related, the team exhaustively explored physical solutions to increase safety. [These] require further rigorous tests, and we continue to work to identify a solution that is feasible in terms of engineering and installation.” The statement doesn’t say that all the…

This year’s Interior Awards ceremony took place at Webb’s Auction House in Auckland on Thursday 24 June. The sold-out event saw more than 360 guests from the architecture and design industries, along with their clients and project collaborators, come together to celebrate both the winners and the finalists across the programme’s nine categories. “The projects that stood out this year were those that told a good story and demonstrated collaboration, craftsmanship, authenticity and an awareness of the richness te ao Māori brings to the built environment,” said awards convenor and Architecture NZ interior editor Amanda Harkness. “Our Supreme Award winner, Te Ao Mārama (Tāmaki Paenga Hira’s South Atrium), is exceptional in all respects.” Jesse Griffin and Jackie van Beek emceed the night, with Te Wehi Haka welcoming the guests and…

I ONCE VISITED THE 51ST FLOOR OF THE Park Hyatt Tokyo to see a friend living out a fantasy high in the sky. Amongst the expected comforts were a distant view of Mount Fuji, a city far below and complete silence. This is the Lost in Translation bubble and the very hotel captured in Sofia Coppola’s 2003 movie. As actor Bill Murray puts it, in playing a role written specifically for him, “The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you”. Hard to be too upset way up here, I suppose, but the paradox is real. When my eyes were tired and I could no longer see the mountain or the city, I could have been anywhere. So, what translates in…

29 MAY – 07 AUGUST 2021 Cooking at a slow boil requires the skilful and patient application of slow, steady heat to ingredients in such a way that they’re only just at boiling point, with a few gentle bubbles rising to the surface. Slow cooking not only enhances starchy and tougher foods and brings grains and dried food back to life but also fuses flavours, entangling disparate components. It requires two core elements – steady heat and time. Replicating the processes of slow cooking is Slow Boil, an exhibition and public creative research project at Artspace Aotearoa, which unfolds and grows over time. The exhibition is a collaboration between Boil Up Crew, including Grayson Goffe, and the interdisciplinary Slow Boil Collective (Chiara Ficarelli, Matthew Galloway, Lachlan Kermode, Bhaveeka Madagammana, Karamia…

I’M SITTING IN THE SUN ON OUR verandah in a gentle, warm, reflective moment: a rare and welcome respite from rain and work as I consider the awful good fortune of being here. We were the beginning of the bourgeois rot: an insidious displacement of Samoan, Tongan, Niuean and the occasional palagi student occupants, forced to move away from crowded villas and the front-room churches with their Baptist-style exhortations and booming hymns. On that gentle sunny morning, I mused over the government’s pronouncement that those of us within walking distance of the city should be prepared to start packing, loading our handcarts with our widescreen TVs and designer furniture for our own shlep out of the neighbourhood, the picturesque little villas on either side cleared away to make an apartment block…

Living on Waiheke Island, I’m surrounded by sculpted coastlines and stunning beaches. I find the juxtaposition of textures and colours within the natural environment inspiring: the geologic, monochrome textures of sandy beaches and rocky boulders, accented by piercing blue waters, lush vegetation and bright florals. I chose Laminam I Naturali Travertino Grigio as a feature within a hospitality environment – the 12mm* porcelain product can be featured as a splashback and benchtop of an open-display kitchen in a restaurant. The travertine’s earthy, layered tones – reminiscent of the weathering effect of tidal movements on the white sands – are enriched by other elements found along Onetangi Beach: boulders, driftwood, dune grasses and the deep red of the pōhutukawa flower. Material selections can also support wellness and biophilic design, with sustainable…

THEATRES ARE DISTINCTIVE CULTURAL buildings that assemble large groups of people within a single room to share a live event. And this ‘liveness’ defines the experience on both sides of the conventional divide between stage and auditorium. The performance itself is directly affected by the dynamic energy specific to the unique character of each audience, establishing a reciprocal exchange that can be found in sports arenas, band venues and celebrations such as weddings and funerals. Yet, over the last 18 months, we have seen this event dimension threatened by a global pandemic, where proxemic bodies signal imminent danger; such gatherings have beem curtailed at the expense of communal entertainment, professional livelihoods, and sociocultural ceremonies. Recent cancellation of shows, suspension of festivals and temporary closures of venues serve to remind us of…

This year, perhaps more than others, the folly finalists appeared to be driven by more-searching imperatives than has previously been the case, with four offering different takes on sustainability and one drawing on our emotional responses to colour. “As always, the entries sought to navigate the area between sculpture and architecture, and, in doing so, highlighted some underlying differences between the two disciplines and some contemporary architectural issues,” says Brick Bay Folly chair, architect Pip Cheshire. “Perhaps the foremost consideration is the extent to which entries offered some spatial experience: something that transcended visual inspection and provoked a consideration of the folly’s making and its place in the wider Brick Bay landscape.” In Between the Rings of the Kauri is a spatially enticing tent-like form, which draws a link between…

You were part of the design team for the award-winning Lyttelton Port Company building, Waterfront House, in 2019. Tell us about your experience. It was a fantastic project – both challenging and rewarding. As project architect, I worked with Kim Salt, a colleague from our Wellington studio, to develop the interiors. In terms of finishes, they had to be both durable and practical. We drew from the surrounding location, with the Port Hills in the distance, and combined the rusty-red Resene Fahrenheit with greens, reds and blues from the Resene Colorwood stains range. We were very humbled to receive two Resene Total Colour Awards for the project: the Commercial Interior Office Award and the Master Nightingale Award for the overall winner. The rusty red presumably references the ubiquitous red oxide…

TE HERENGA WAKA VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON 23–24 JULY 2021 Eighty architecture students from around the country gathered in Wellington to compete in the annual SANNZ (Student Architecture Network of New Zealand) 24 Hour Design Competition at the end of July. The 12 teams were given a brief on Friday 23 July and worked through the night and the following day, presenting to a panel of three judges on the Saturday evening. The event began at local Wellington brew bar Whistling Sisters, where the teams were given some inventive challenges to get the creative juices flowing, including designing a cantilevered structure with popsicle sticks and creating a Covid-19 government bunker. Following this, back at the design studio, the design brief was revealed. The teams were asked to imagine that Wellington’s…