Light Architecture
The most successful event in this year’s Wellington Festival of the Arts , was the ‘Powerplant’ lighting display held in the botanical gardens.
This demonstrates that the primary human sense is the visual. Building on the public appeal of artificial lighting displays, a recent public lighting festival called ‘Lux Wellington Night Lights’ turned Wellington’s waterfront into a captivating celebration of light, art, technology and design’ (to which I would naturally add architecture).
Icon Envy
A recent survey commissioned by UK Building/Architecture website InBuilding.org was recently profiled in The Architects Journal under the headline, ‘It’s true: people don’t know what architects do.’
People visiting The Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Shard in London are given a bit of a clue as to what architects do.
Having recently returned from a visit to Sydney, I tripped over at least two real eye poppers.
One being American Frank Gehry’s first building in the southern hemisphere, the new UTS Business School. It is a pretty amazing building that recognises brick can be laid in other than straight and perpendicular lines.
Under construction – the UTS Business School.
Apparently a 75 -year-old bricklayer had to be taken out of retirement to deal with this new liberation of the brick. Read More
Heritage Houses in the Hutt
I took a short break this week in the middle of some design deadlines to visit to a John Scott 1970s’ gem, still owned by the friends of John who commissioned it. (Thanks to Lower Hutt architect Bruce Sedcole for organising the visit).
I’m both a professional and personal fan of John and his work, and deeply admire his contribution to Māori architecture and defining bi-cultural architecture in 20th century New Zealand.
A joyful meeting
The 1970s were a frantic period of architectural activity for us.
One of the many houses in this period was for some very nice people called the Hamiltons in 1978.
I visited the site somewhere in North Canterbury just once, before I had even put pen to paper. It was a featureless flat paddock some distance from the road.
I did the drawings and handed the originals over to the clients for their self build, without even keeping a copy.
Being a (sometimes) responsible young husband with three young ones, I never made the trip back to see the house and it remained ‘one that got away’ for 40 years. I had heard the Hamiltons went to sea and had sold the house. Read More
Weather or not
It’s been rough around the planet in recent times. Hell hasn’t frozen over, but recently the Niagara Falls did.
England has been subject to flooding of almost biblical proportions.
Parts of Christchurch have been hit by tornados and the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales regularly catch fire.
Car production was recently halted in northern Japan because of snow drifts. It’s ironic isn’t it, that science blames the cars themselves for the unwelcome presence of the snow?
In the main though, the Wellington region is not only been spared the negative effects of global warming, but is seemingly a beneficiary of it. I think the great architect must be rather pleased with Wellington. Read More
