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Issue One An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. — 2016 —

10. 14. 26. The diversity of New Class of ’15: the creative Innovative work by design- Zealand’s architecture and inspiring designs oriented companies is is highlighted in Future that received the highest showcased in the hosting Islands, the country’s architectural honours at space at the venue of the exhibition in the Biennale the 2015 New Zealand New Zealand architecture Architeturra 2016. Architecture Awards. exhibition in Venice.

Joyful architecture Children playing on the roof of Amritsar, the Wellington house that was a career-long project of Sir Ian Athfield (1940– 2015), an outstanding figure in New Zealand architecture. More village than residence, Amritsar has captivated visitors for 40 years. One new fan is U.S. critic Alexandra Lange (see page 9). Photograph courtesy Athfield Architects.

Our archipelago has been discovered by a succession cultural and spiritual importance around which of voyagers and explorers over the centuries but was dwellings were clustered. one of the last significant land masses to be peopled. As the Māori population increased and society The story Around 800 years ago, in the last thrust of human became more tribalised, strategic hillsides were expansion throughout the Pacific Ocean, expert nav- secured during periods of warfare by large-scale igators sailing sophisticated doubled-hulled vessels earthworks and palisades known as pā. The history landed in the southern reach of Polynesia (‘many of New Zealand architecture is not just one of arrival up to now islands’) and adapted their way of life to a colder, and the adaptation and evolution of building forms more temperate land. but also of transforming the landscape to meet the Architecture in New Zealand is These people, Māori, built quite different struc- needs of people. an island narrative of exploration, tures from those in the Pacific. Low-roofed, sin- Throughout Oceania there is a strong relation- gle-roomed dwellings (whare) woven from plants ship between the technologies required to construct arrival and ongoing adaptation. were dug partially into the ground to insulate them ocean-going craft and those used to create buildings. from strong winds and cold. However, one feature What were once seen as simple dug-out canoes and By Bill McKay that remained common throughout the Pacific was grass shacks are now recognised as skilfully built the marae ātea, a large, open space of communal, Continued on page 4... KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 3

Contributors Contents

New Zealand’s participation in the 2016 Architeturra Pip Cheshire is a director of Cheshire The story up to now Architects, President (2014–16) of the by Bill McKay...... 1 Biennale in Venice is an opportunity to consider the New Zealand Institute of Architects, and a writer on architecture. wider achievements of New Zealand’s architecture The state of play Philip Clarke is a freelance writer by Pip Cheshire...... 5 and design practitioners, the increasing diversity of and curator who for eleven years was director of Auckland craft and design The critical case for regionalism their practice and production, and their contribution gallery Objectspace. Alexandra Lange, in Alexandra​ Lange is a New York writer conversation with John Walsh...... ​ 8 to the life of the country. Future Islands, the official who is the architecture critic at the online publication Curbed and a Don’t look back New Zealand exhibition created by Charles Walker columnist at Dezeen. by John Walsh...... 10 and Kathy Waghorn and commissioned for the New Craig Martin is a former teacher and THE NEW ZEALAND EXHIBITION school principal who runs a website Minka the model maker Zealand Institute of Architects by Tony van Raat, dedicated to the work of New Zealand by John Walsh...... 11 architect John Scott. Weaving many strands puts some of these concerns on the international Bill McKay is a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning by Desna Whaanga-Schollum...... 12 architectural radar. But, of course, there’s a lot at the University of Auckland and the author of several books about New Class of ’15...... 14 going on beneath the surface of the show: island Zealand architecture. Designing women seek environments have long been regarded as nesting Lynda Simmons is director of Lynda rightful place Simmons Architect and combines grounds for evolutionary development. practice with teaching at Auckland’s by Lucy Treep and schools of architecture. Lynda Simmons...... 18 Michael Smythe is a design Adopt, adapt, adept This publication tells some more of our island’s practitioner, strategist, writer and historian. He is the author of by Michael Smythe...... 20 design stories. It takes its name from a Māori word New Zealand by Design: a History of New Zealand Product Design. Well-crafted stories by Michael Barrett...... 21 for a gift or contribution, an offering made in a spirit Lucy Treep is principal of the architecture practice Burgess & Treep Object lessons of reciprocity. We want to learn from the Biennale, Architects and with Lynda Simmons editor of Architecture in an Expanded by Philip Clarke...... 22 and offer information in return. Our stories may be Field (2015). Art of the landscape news to many people – we believe it’s good news. Koha Desna Whaanga-Schollum (Ngāti by Michael Barrett...... 23 VENICE.NZIA.CO.NZ Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Kahungunu, covers the continuum of architecture and design in Ngāti Pāhauwera) is an artist, Bright futures...... 24 designer and researcher, and current New Zealand, looking at how we got to where we’re at chair of Ngā Aho, a national network Inside the New Zealand Room of Māori design professionals. (voyages, arrivals and adaptations), what’s happening Edited by Michael Barrett...... 26

now (design tendencies and contemporary projects), Six of the best...... 30 and why the outlook is propitious (the promotion of A perfect getaway inclusiveness, the push for equity and the promise by Craig Martin...... 32 of youthful talent). Koha also profiles the innovative Book end...... 34 companies who see New Zealand’s presence at the world’s leading architecture event as a chance to tell their stories in a forum dedicated to the exhibition of imaginative propositions and the realisation of creative ideas.

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Koha — © New Zealand Institute Teena Hale Pennington, Koha is published with More information about architecture An offering of New of Architects 2016 Chief Executive, NZIA the support of the New in New Zealand can be found at: Zealand Architecture This publication is copy­ Zealand Government and Design. right. No part may be Editors: John Walsh through Manatū Taonga, Issue One, 2016 reproduced or transmitted (Communications the Ministry for Culture www.nzia.co.nz BRONZE PARTNERS in any form by any means Manager, NZIA), Michael and Heritage’s Cultural Published by the New without permission in Barrett (Communications Diplomacy International NewZealandInstituteofArchitects Zealand Institute of writing from the publisher. Advisor) Programme. Architects Incorporated 21 Queen Street, Thanks to the rights Design: www.inhouse.nz ISBN 978-0-473-35462-6 @NZIArchitects Auckland 1010, holders for permission to New Zealand reproduce photographs Printer: Everbest Printing @nziarchitects nzia.co.nz and illustrations. Co., China 4 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 5

...continued from page 1 kitsets. Most early dwellings were simple cottages, supplanted pātaka and war canoes (waka taua) to stripped of decoration and with rooms gradually become the centres of society and repositories of added as means allowed. These early houses were identity in a time of cultural erosion. Today, meeting nearly all constructed of wooden framing and clad- houses – with their large forecourt open areas and ding as a result of the extensive milling of timber to ancillary buildings, known as marae – are perhaps the THE STORY UP TO NOW clear farmland, although in the south of the South most significant architectural forms characterising By Bill McKay Island, in particular, use was made of cob and other New Zealand and Māori architecture and culture. earth construction techniques. The late nineteenth century saw the creation of Corrugated iron – actually steel, but known col- suburbs and the evolution of the cottage into the structures that responded to local climatic and mate- loquially as tin – was used abundantly for roofing larger but still free-standing, single-storeyed and rial conditions and that evolved in response to chang- and even walls as it could be efficiently stacked and timber-constructed villa. In the early twentieth cen- ing circumstances. The large double-hulled vessels shipped to New Zealand from the factories of Britain. tury the bungalow arrived from the West Coast of became single-hulled canoes (waka), manned by pad- This was the same Industrial Revolution Britain from the United States. The verandah had been a feature dlers and suited to coastal and riverine conditions. which mostly urban working and middle-class col- And the early whare, thanks to abundant timber and onists were fleeing; for them, land in New Zealand excellent woodworking skills, developed into larger was the answer to their aspirations for an agrarian In the 1930s and ’40s New structures benefiting from a rich carving tradition lifestyle and improvement in social class. Zealand’s suburbs were that culminated in elaborate elevated storage houses Corrugated iron remains an iconic material in New known as pātaka. Zealand, and the first choice for roofing domestic expanded through mass social European explorers such as Abel Tasman (in 1642) houses and constructing farm buildings. Although housing, namely the state and James Cook (in 1769) touched the shores of New today brick is produced in reasonable quantities from house, which was derived Zealand in search of Terra Australis, the fabled Great the country’s abundant clay, it performs poorly in the THE STATE Southern Land, but turned away, disappointed. Not 01. An orou double­- land’s equally abundant earthquakes, and is generally from Britain’s Garden City -hulled canoe OF PLAY until whalers, sealers and flax traders established under sail, Mailu, used only as a cladding over more resilient timber Movement. But this was the more permanent contact did lawlessness and dubi- Papua New Guinea, framing. New immigrants to New Zealand are still 1932. Photo: H. last time New Zealand looked By Pip Cheshire ous land sales prompt Britain’s acquisition of New Bernatzik. Courtesy surprised to see sprawling suburbs of typical timber Zealand. The treaty signed by the British Government of the Photoinstitut and tin houses that seem not that much more tech- to its ‘mother country’ for Bonartes, Austria. and Māori tribes was the signal for a rush of settle- 02. Vue intérieure nologically advanced than the dwellings of a century architectural inspiration. ment after 1840 and a radical transformation of the du pa de and a half ago. Is it possible that we architects in New Zealand are Kahouwhera, landscape. Forests were felled, roads were made and Nouvelle Zélande. Conflict between Māori and the rapidly growing damned by a too beautiful and unpopulated land? new agricultural techniques introduced that rapidly Picture by Louis de population of British settlers saw warfare from the That such is the abundance of one after another Sainson, lithograph outstanding natural landscape that the works of affected native habitats, flora, fauna and, not least, by Isidore Laurent 1840s until the 1860s. One striking building type of early New Zealand houses and other buildings – it Māori culture. Deroy. Published by arose from this conflict: the meeting house. Known was also common in other lands colonised during the human endeavour are eclipsed? Tastu, 1833 (Paris). Well, not really: hills throughout the country are The New Zealand colonial project did not so much National Library in Māori as the whare nui (large house) or whare nineteenth century – and remains another iconic involve the adaptation of European architectural of Australia. 03. whakairo (carved house), the meeting house adapted trope of the country’s architecture. sprinkled with pastel-coloured farmhouses craning Unidentified pātaka their hipped roofs for yet wider views. Above them forms to New Zealand conditions as the transfor- (Māori storehouse). European materials and techniques to compete with In the 1930s and ’40s New Zealand’s suburbs were mation of the landscape to suit imported forms. In Ref: 1/1-006740-F. churches in scale, and provide a place for Māori to expanded through mass social housing, namely the are hilltops notched with terraces, remnants of Auckland, then the country’s capital, the first govern- Alexander Turnbull come together and discuss issues. The meeting state house, which was derived from Britain’s Garden defensible enclosures built by Māori, the coun- Library, Wellington, try’s first inhabitants. Nineteenth-century clearing ment residence and Parliament were prefabricated New Zealand. houses became highly carved and decorated and City Movement. But this was the last time New Zealand looked to its ‘mother country’ for architec- of the country’s thick native forest cover to form pastureland heralded European colonisation and tural inspiration. New Zealand was occupied during the transformation of the land with roads, railways, the Second World War, not by enemy forces but by hydro dams, towns and cities. We have made these, American troops en route to the Pacific theatre. until the late twentieth century, with a sense of iso- Before the war, New Zealanders referred to Britain as lation, of being at great distance from the northern ‘home’; after the war, the country looked to the United hemisphere’s sophistication and modernity. States. The suburban house in the late 1950s and If distance has lent us a backward, provincial air, ’60s swiftly acquired the elements of the Californian it has also given us room to make a society freed Ranch-style house. With its open plan and free flow from the received constraints of class and tradition, between the interior and the great outdoors – the a place in which it is said ‘Jack (and Jill) are as good perennial national preoccupation – this housing type as their neighbours’. While an egalitarian society remains popular today. was founded on progressive and idealistic legisla- One other icon of New Zealand architecture tion, the rapid building of the country’s infrastruc- deserves mention: the bach, a small, shack-like holiday ture revealed a tough pragmatism. Rivers have home near a beach or lake that many New Zealanders been dammed for hydro power, waterways filled to make harbours from which our agricultural pro- 01 02 05 duce is exported, and hills levelled to make roads, towns and cities. visited in summer. Some of the most interesting con- In the main, the buildings of late-nineteenth temporary house designs toy with, react against, or The destruction of the city of and early-twentieth-century towns appear as if invoke the spirit of our various types: vernacular farm Napier in 1931 had a happy side- transposed from English provinces. The latter buildings, villa, bungalow, state house and bach. half of the twentieth century has, however, seen The house has always been and remains a central effect when the city was rapidly rapid urbanisation, mass overseas travel, wider concern of New Zealand architecture. It is central to rebuilt in the Art Deco style, sources of immigration, the growth of car-based suburbanisation and an increased concern with the the practice of most architects, surprising as that is to becoming for a brief period ‘the expression of national identity in the country’s art those in countries that look to other building types to and architecture. satisfy architectural ambitions and express identity. most modern city on the globe’. With few exceptions, the more recent com- In its first one-hundred-and-fifty years, New Zealand’s mercial buildings of the cities are dominated by government, institutional and commercial buildings the stripped-back internationalism so beloved of were largely similar to those in many other countries developers for its avoidance of detail, cost and during the same period. Schools, however, were more innovative in form, grace. In earthquake-ravaged Christchurch, a city 03 This isn’t unusual as New Zealand was one of the last especially during the twentieth century, when a wave once lauded for its pre-cast-concrete Brutalism transplants of the British Empire, and was expected to of progressive educational ideas also found architec- and playfully reworked colonial Gothic, one sees a develop as a branch of imperial growth. Many of the tural expression. Classrooms became large and sun- significant collection of new commercial buildings

04. A burgeoning state house suburb in Levin. country’s nineteenth and twentieth century buildings filled places that spilled onto verandahed spaces. The and, perhaps, might discern a new aesthetic canon. Photo by John Dobrée Pascoe. Ref: 1/4-001183- were constructed of brick and stone, but in scale they destruction of the city of Napier in 1931 had a happy Though it is ‘early days’ and many construc- F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. 05. ‘Hut on Sleds’ by Crosson are small and in style they reflect the same concerns of side-effect when the city was rapidly rebuilt in the tion cranes still swing on Christchurch’s skyline, Clarke Carnachan Architects. A rethinking of Victorian Britain and its Battle of the Styles, although Art Deco style, becoming for a brief period ‘the most one sees a transition from the ubiquitous pre- the ‘bach’ – the traditionally small, often ad cast-concrete way of building to coloured and hoc, houses (or shacks) that are prolific on the with marginally more Gothic Revival than Classical, modern city on the globe’. coast. Photo by Simon Devitt. especially in church architecture. Continued on page 6... Continued on page 7... 04 6 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 7

country and no other. Examples are Richard Toy’s As a young nation, New Zealand knows its past ...continued from page 5 All Saints, Auckland (1958), and John Scott’s Futuna more immediately, intimately and obsessively than patterned high-performance glass skins stretched Chapel, Wellington (1961). many, but, like any adolescent nation, is also very over seismically engineered structures. In the The twentieth-century revivals of Māori traditions self-conscious of its present and its place in the world. immediate aftermath of the first earthquake, the and crafts have signified and contributed to the devel- The settlement and growth of New Zealand continues public’s reluctance to enter buildings, and certainly opment of a bicultural society, and this development and as the increasing diversity of population connects high-rise ones, has led to a constraint on the height is now frequently reflected in architecture. There is our islands to more and more shores, these islands, of rebuilding. In addition to limited height, many a related openness to the architecture of other cul- in an era of contracting physical distances and new ingenious seismic devices are on display, each tures, especially those of the Polynesian diaspora – digital, virtual and multicultural dimensions, are designed to ensure, and show, that buildings can the people of Tonga, Samoa and other Pacific islands looking to new and multiplying futures. not only be evacuated safely, but be brought back – that make Auckland the largest Polynesian city in into alignment and reuse. the world. One suspects this is something of a short-term Today, immigration to New Zealand continues phenomenon and as the memory of that awful as it has always done and a new wave of immigrants ’quake dulls, those more complex concerns of his- from Asia will add significantly to the spectrum of the tory, morphology and culture may be more evident. currently European, Māori, Polynesian, Indian and At present, perhaps only Architectus’s new trans- Chinese population. Given that New Zealand archi- port hub eschews seismic exhibitionism in favour 07. Interior of Rangiatea Church, Ōtaki, of those aspects of inculturation and maturation tecture consists of imported ideas and models that 1851. Sketch by Charles Decimus Barraud, that made architecture a blood sport in pre-earth- crash into or alight on our islands, that are imposed lithograph by R.K. Thomas, London, Day & Son [ca. 1852]. Alexander Turnbull Library, quake Christchurch. on or adapted to local conditions, it is only a matter of Wellington, New Zealand. 08. Futuna Further north, Auckland, the biggest city, aims time until this new wave of immigrants contributes Chapel, Karori, Wellington. A “church distinctively of this country and no other”. at being the most liveable in the world. While one to a new architecture. Photo by Duncan Winder. Ref: DW-0198-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, might think it reasonably well set up for a run at Architecture in New Zealand has never been pri- New Zealand. 09. Extension to Auckland the title, with harbours, beaches and picturesque marily about form or function, landscape, materials, Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2011) designed by FJMT in association with Archimedia – a volcanic cones, it suffers from a heart that has tectonics or climate: it is a cross-cultural conversa- Pacific pavilion alongside a weighty French been the proving ground for decades of legisla- tion that has been at the heart of our best architec- Renaissance-style ‘chateau’. The Gallery was tive tinkering with the nation’s finance system. At judged to be ‘World Building of the Year’ at ture since different peoples started meeting each the 2013 World Architecture Festival. Photo various times this has included a King Canute-like other here. by Patrick Reynolds. attempt to outlaw wage and price increases and, at the opposite extreme, the dismantling of any sort of constraint on banking and speculation. In this environment the survival of any building of quality in Auckland has been more by happenstance than deliberate act. If the buildings of the nation’s commercial sector are, at best, a work in progress, institutional buildings are something of a curate’s egg, the best showing a knowing sense of place and an awareness of both the specifics of site and a wider understanding of the New Zealand cultural con- dition. One might look to the reworked Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki by FJMT/Archimedia and Stevens Lawson’s Blyth Performing Arts Centre in 06 Hawke’s Bay to find projects that are at once of international quality and local in character. Given the preponderance of easily accessible ...continued from page 5 and the influence of vernacular structures such as 06. Āpirana Turupa a genuinely cross-cultural architecture that became Ngata leading a open land and the clearing of native forest to The first tentative arrival of Modernism between the farm woolshed and the Māori meeting house. haka at the 1940 even more significant in a group of large churches create pasture as a prevalent mythology during the wars coincided with a period of progressive In contrast to this brief era of Regional Modernism, centennial cele- including Rangiatea (1851) at Ōtaki. brations, Waitangi. the country’s colonial occupation, it is perhaps not thinking, an egalitarian social climate and a burst of the late 1960s and ’70s saw a more relaxed aesthetic From ‘Making New Early wooden churches were envisaged as tem- surprising that the specific conditions of site and industrialisation. Some new architectural ideas were and a humanistic focus, a development that could be Zealand Centennial porary until those of ‘permanent materials’ (brick climate are invariably identified as prime deter- Collection.’ Ref: expressed in factories and commercial buildings, traced to international sources but also resonated MNZ-2746-1/2-F. and stone) could be built, but a lack of good-quality minants of form and programme, invariably at the albeit to a limited extent due to the effects of the Great with egalitarian inclinations, do-it-yourself attitudes Alexander Turnbull stone and masonry skills, and the land’s tendency to cost of a more studied engagement in architecture Library, Wellington, Depression and the generally conservative taste of and a vernacular revival. New Zealand. quake meant that it was only large urban churches as a discrete research or creative activity. most of the population. The architectural achievements in these years that were substantial. New Zealand’s settlement in It is in the country’s bespoke houses that the were significant, even if they were mainly confined the nineteenth century paralleled the period of the combination of the concerns of site and climate, to the domestic realm, and did not greatly affect what new and radical Gothic Revival, and spare, timber 07 08 those of creative endeavour, research and engage- The first tentative arrival had become a stifling atmosphere of dull commer- versions of this style of church, featuring a beautiful ment in a global architectural discourse, reach their of Modernism between the cial and institutional Modernism. Post-Modernism exposed structure crafted from native timbers, are zenith. Although the number of architect-designed landed in New Zealand at a time of radical economic widespread and constitute, as prominent historian houses hovers around only eight per cent of all wars coincided with a period and political change. Consequently, it was controver- Michael King put it, “our one memorable contribu- houses built, a mixture of good craft building skills, of progressive thinking, an sial. Post-Modern architecture was regarded by some tion to world architecture”. spectacular sites and a near-universal belief in one’s egalitarian social climate and a as laissez-faire looseness lacking a moral compass, Later-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century right to a stand-alone house has generated a body and by others as an expression of freedom from the churches reflect the international Battle of the Styles of outstanding domestic work within the country. burst of industrialisation. strictures of Modernism or the introverted preoccu- with a series of Classical Revival Catholic basilicas, A generally benign climate and a ready supply pation of generations with national identity. Recent in particular, being a high point. But, again, it is the of timber suitable for building has engendered a highly developed way of constructing lightweight decades have seen a welcome shift away from the response of Māori to the pressures of European houses. The relatively low cost and high speed house as an architectural focus and an improvement settlement that result in distinctively New Zealand of timber construction has spawned large nine- in commercial and institutional buildings. adaptations of European forms to be at the service of teenth-century houses on high-country sheep Modernism took off during the post-war economic Oddly enough, in a nation that has always been Māori needs. This is seen over the course of several estates, mass government-sponsored state-owned boom. In the 1950s and ’60s there was a proliferation one of the least religious in the world, it is in New decades, from the Catholic churches of the Mill Hill housing from the 1940s, architect-led experimen- of new government, institutional and commercial Zealand’s churches that one can see not just a clear missionaries (1890s), the churches and the revival of tal housing in the post-Second World War years, buildings built in the concrete and glass International reflection of the concerns of each period in our meeting house construction by Āpirana Ngata in the and continues now with sophisticated and highly style. Brutalism was particularly important in New country’s history but also significant architectural 1930s, and the churches and marae constructed by crafted houses and an increasing use of engi- Zealand, and often featured concrete and blockwork achievement. Missionaries came to New Zealand at the Rātana movement in the 1930s–1950s. neered timber panels in prefabricated housing. that imitated timber post and beam construction. the beginning of the nineteenth century. Some of the The full-scale arrival of Modernism in the post-war A recent trend to heavier in-situ and pre-cast- At a time when New Zealand was self-consciously earliest churches erected by Anglican and Catholic period, combined with a spate of church construction concrete houses suggests that perhaps we have searching for a national identity it’s not surprising that missionaries from the 1820s were built by Māori for in expanding cities, the liturgical reforms of Vatican begun a more permanent occupation of the land. Modernism, especially in domestic architecture, took Māori congregations using flax and raupō (bulrush) 2 and a continuing concern with the expression If this is so, rapprochement with a resurgent Māori on a regional accent. Architects argued that building while incorporating imported elements such as lan- of national identity, that led to a large number of culture and their ways of building and relating to form should acknowledge local climate, materials cet windows. These structures were early examples of remarkable churches that are distinctively of this the land is, as yet, an unfinished programme. 09 8 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 9 The critical case

cities might be an extreme case for solar heat gain. Why not make something beautiful and character- for regionalism istic out of that? Otherwise the waterfront could be anyone’s waterfront, and in fact a number of the five New York architectural writer Alexandra Lange visited New to ten-year-old commercial buildings are. It seemed like domestic architecture is doing a better job of Zealand early in 2016. She talked to John Walsh about some showcasing views and still making a comfortable, of the surprising discoveries she made on her journey. enclosed environment.

There are a couple of issues there. As you say, everyone’s doing waterfront regeneration these days: how do you develop something that is not generic or ubiquitous? And, as you noticed, many 03 domestic projects are well adapted to climate, environment and context. A besetting challenge in New Zealand architecture is the translation of the qualities evident in well-designed residential architecture to big buildings. And that in turn John Walsh: I’m guessing that before you visited example, is very elegant and combines landscape 01. Rore Kahu, raises many issues, including the expectations of New Zealand you didn’t know that much about the and texture in an interesting way. the Marsden clients, budgets, leadership at a city and national Cross Interpretive country, let alone its architecture. Centre, by Cheshire governmental level, and the sheer ability of archi- It is also always fun to see other countries’ versions Architects. Photo tects to deploy their skills at scale. by Nat Cheshire. Alexandra Lange: I knew nothing, absolutely nothing. of architectural movements. I was impressed by the 02. Student Union Growing up, my best friend’s aunt married someone concrete architecture of Warren and Mahoney in Building, University I know you mentioned that Australian architects of Canterbury, from New Zealand and it was as if that aunt had Christchurch – some would call it Brutalism – that Christchurch, 1967, often end up getting larger urban projects, which moved to outer space – they saw the family at best was so sensitive to climate and siting. A friend runs a meticulously can lead to frustration as local architects don’t every five years. So my sense of it was far away, the website ‘Fuck Yeah Brutalism’ and he had none detailed example get the opportunity to stretch. I’d say to commis- of New Zealand’s green, sheep and (I’m sorry) The Lord of the Rings. of it. Why is so much contemporary New Zealand New Brutalism sioning bodies that, as someone from abroad, I’d architecture using unshaded glass when you have designed by Warren rather see designs I wouldn’t see anywhere else, and Mahoney. Yes, we’re doomed to live in Middle Earth for as that example? The building is and that showcase the special topography and long as the marketers can eke out that branding an assembly of climate of Auckland or Wellington or elsewhere. post-tensioned pre- journey. Given that you had few expectations A good question. There are all these highly glazed cast concrete frame Colour, for example. I saw beautiful colour at the before your visit, did you encounter any surprises office buildings in Auckland that must have looked and pre-cast panels. home [in Cox’s Bay, Auckland] of Pete Bossley and As Sir Miles Warren when you travelled round New Zealand? good in a render, and they’re festooned with put it, “we were Miriam van Wezel, but not a lot in the cityscapes. I interior blinds or just sheets of paper that the interested in how have to say that I thought the Auckland Art Gallery It wasn’t until my fourth stop, in Wellington, that the occupants have stuck to the glass so they can read you put it together… (by Australians!) did a good job of combining a coming from a branding kicked in. Because my idea of New Zealand what’s on their computer screens as they try to carpentr­y tradition”. handsome contemporary vocabulary with a strik- was at least twenty years out of date, I wasn’t adjust the air con on steamy summer afternoons. Watercolour image ing wood veneer canopy that was made for New courtesy of Warren expecting the architecture I saw to be as sophisti- Perhaps it’s to do with compulsion to offer, and and Mahoney. Zealand. The prominent coffee bar seemed appro- cated and as mainstream, vis-à-vis the United States, market, a view – as much of a view as possible. priately local and approachable too. as it was. There seemed to me to be a more general Isn’t this a universal condition? acceptance of Modernism there than here, as well as Let’s talk about some of the other things you saw in some cases a higher quality of construction. The It is, but, since everyone kept reminding me about on your visit. What else did you enjoy? Britomart pop-up commercial area in Auckland, for the strength of the sun, it seems like New Zealand I loved the coastline near Kerikeri and in the Bay of 01 Islands – that was where I got my first sense of the scale and complexity of the New Zealand land- scape. The Marsden Cross Interpretive Centre had a great combination of simplicity and design, giving arrival at that spot a sense of ceremony.

In Christchurch I did not feel encouraged by the 04 current state of the central business district or the cathedral, but there were fascinating developments 03. Ortolana, a A return to native planting, and landscape architec- their characteristics, in their architecture? That around the edges. My favourite was the Margaret restaurant within a ture that heals as well as beautifies the environment is, beyond the application of motif or pursuit of temporary pavilion, Mahy Family Playground, which is big and bright at Britomart, are not new ideas, but I was intrigued by a couple pastiche. Or should we not get hung up on this? If and was filled with families, even though there Auckland. Photo of New Zealand-specific examples: Megan Wraight’s buildings work and do their job and are enjoyable by Jeremy Toth. seemed to be little housing around it. 04. Extension waterfront project in Wellington – a garden which to occupy and look at, and are environmentally to Auckland Art artfully combines recreation and some beautiful responsible – is that enough? Gallery Toi o Tāmaki And in Wellington I was blown away by Amritsar (2011) designed by wild moments, and acts as a filter for the harbour, House by the late Ian Athfield (see cover), which FJMT in association and Thomas Woltz’s Orongo Station, near Gisborne. This is actually the theme of the essay I’m work- is really like nothing else I’ve ever seen. A truly with Archimedia. This is a huge private project of reclamation and ing on about the trip – places in New Zealand Photo by Patrick astonishing place. I wish someone would make a Reynolds. reforestation, combined with more responsible that exemplify what used to be called Critical dramatic miniseries about how it came to be. farming practice, that seems like a whole new Regionalism, which I personally would like to see model of how to live in the landscape. It requires more of. A world of practically the same buildings You also saw some landscape projects, or proj- some mental rearrangement to see all those sheep in good taste may sound like a good thing when ects in the landscape, of some scale. Human as interlopers who are destroying the hills – via ero- ninety-nine per cent of the built world is out of intervention in the landscape is no new thing in sion and grazing – that they look so pretty on. architects’ hands – but then, why would we travel? New Zealand, of course – our economy was built It’s the differences of climate or politics or cultural on it. But the contrived fashioning of the land is One last question, and this relates to Rem dynamics or even individual personality that push quite new, and sometimes it’s intended to repair Koolhaas’s 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, ideas in architecture along. I feel that no matter the depredations of settlement. You also saw which examined a century of modernity and how many digital images we consume, I always some urban landscaping work too, for example at its homogenising effects: how much space do hope the versions – of blackened wood cladding, Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour. Did you get any sense different countries – or regions – need to have or ethereal white steel, or swoopy roofs – turn of the landscape–architecture relationship here? to meaningfully express their difference, or out differently. 02 10 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 11

platform for some research, but we’re also very aware Aravena announced his Biennale theme. Even so, that the Biennale is an event experienced by an audi- Walker says, “I don’t think Future Islands and ence, and not all of the audience are academics or ‘Reporting from the Front’ are that far apart. architecture practitioners. “Perhaps our manifesto has a gentler character Don’t look back “We wanted the exhibition to be atmospheric, than Alejandro’s call to arms, but I think we’re both and in our very first proposal we said we wanted it looking forward with the optimism that all architects to be beautiful – which perhaps is an uncool thing to have to have. New Zealand’s inaugural exhibition at the Biennale Architeturra was FUTURE ISLANDS say these days – and we wanted it to be intriguing,” “I was struck by an image Alejandro used to illus- about the country’s architectural origins; that ground having been — 2016 Walker says. “Future Islands is designed as an exhi- trate his theme – Bruce Chatwin’s photograph of the bition through which people wander, much as they German mathematician and anthropologist Maria covered, the second exhibition looks to the architectural future. might find their way around Calvino’sInvisible Cities. Reiche, who became obsessed by the Nazca lines in People can navigate the exhibition – they’ll have a Peru and studied them for half a century. In the photo, Where the 2014 New Zealand exhibition told a partic- map – but not necessarily in any order. Things are she’s up on a stepladder, gazing out to the desert. ular story, the 2016 exhibition, Future Islands, curated left hanging, you might say. “For me, this image suggests that a slight shift in By John Walsh by a team led by creative director Charles Walker of “We wanted to make the host building – Palazzo perspective opens up a new way of understanding the AUT University and associate creative director Kathy Bollani in Castello – part of the exhibition. Our world. Take our archipelago of islands. Archipelago Waghorn of The University of Auckland, presents ‘islands’ would float within the building. They could has come to mean a group of islands, but originally multiple perspectives of the country’s architecture be read as landforms, clouds, waves, or volcanic fields, it meant the sea in which the islands were found – – nearly fifty projects, many of them unrealised, or as bodies in space – we wanted them to introduce the sea that connects, as well as separates. That’s designed by big firms, small practices and students, a fluid, organic quality to the exhibition venue. rather a comforting perspective or, at least, not such are modelled in the exhibition. It’s quite a different “We also like that Palazzo Bollani has a watergate – a lonely prospect.”

narrative, yet told in response to a similar question. a door onto a canal,” Walker says. “In a way, that door St George David Photo by When they contemplated entering the competi- opens directly to New Zealand. The canal is part of More information about Future Islands and tion to create the 2016 New Zealand exhibition, which the water mass that covers the globe. You could go out architecture in New Zealand can be found at: was prior to Chilean architect Alejandra Aravena the door and get to New Zealand, eventually, with a www.venice.nzia.co.nz being chosen as Biennale director, and before he bit of navigation.” MINKA THE announced his theme, ‘Reporting from the Front’, And a fair bit of time. Because New Zealand is NewZealandInstituteofArchitects Walker and his team were “thinking about what we so far from Venice – and it takes such a long time @NZIArchitects MODEL MAKER could say about architecture in New Zealand, and how to ship things from here to there – the creators of @nziarchitects and why we might say it, in a meaningful way, in an Future Islands had to start work well before Alejandro By John Walsh international context.” Basically, “what, if anything, LAST, LONELIEST, of national characteristics”) and what may still be 01. Visitors at constitutes ‘New Zealand’ architecture?” Last, Loneliest, One of the first people Charles Walker called when LOVELIEST found (“the survival of unique national features Loveliest, New The answer, according to Future Islands, is diver- — 2014 and mentalities”). Zealand’s inaugural sity, which might surprise not only outsiders who pre- he learned he had been selected as the Creative national exhibition Director of New Zealand’s exhibition at the 2016 For many curators, Koolhaas’s theme was a prompt at the Biennale sume New Zealand is relatively straightforward but to examine the relationship, in their country, between Architettura. also many New Zealanders who haven’t quite caught Venice Architecture Biennale was Minka Ip. A tent-like form, Walker’s exhibition proposal, Future Islands, After a couple of brave but abortive attempts to enter local traditions – cultural as well as architectural which referenced up with the extent of the country’s heterogeneity. an official New Zealand pavilion into the Venice – and Modernism, the architectural lingua franca the lightweight “New Zealand is actually one of the most dynamic called for numerous architecture models, and if Architecture Biennale, the New Zealand Institute of the twentieth century. Modernity, Modernism, constructions of societies in the world in terms of population demo- you want architecture models, Minka is your man. Aotearoa New Over the past decade his Auckland-based company of Architects (NZIA) assumed responsibility for the Modernisation: the terms could get slippery, and, not Zealand and other graphics, political economy and culture,” Walker says. country’s participation in the world’s leading archi- surprisingly, most exhibition curators opted to cast Pacific Islands, was “And also, as academics interacting with people in Architecture + Design Fabrication Workshop has the centrepoint emerged as the go-to model maker for curators, tecture exhibition in 2014. the theme as a simpler question: What, if anything, of the exhibition. the early stages of their architectural careers, Kathy architects and developers. The inaugural New Zealand pavilion at the Venice is different about your country’s architecture story 02. Future Islands Waghorn and I are very conscious of how the profes- concept drawing Ip started making models as a student at The Architecture Biennale was curated by a team led by over the past century? showing suspended sion is attracting a wider range of people, and there University of Auckland’s School of Architecture, and Auckland architect David Mitchell, a director of the David Mitchell’s proposition was that what differ- ‘islands’ dotted is now a greater variety of approaches and influences with projects that while at the School he made models for exhibitions Auckland practice Mitchell & Stout Architects and entiates New Zealand architecture is its inherited present multiple than our histories tend to record.” perspectives of the at Objectspace Gallery and Auckland War Memorial the recipient of the NZIA Gold Medal for design Pacific construction tradition – a legacy of light- country’s evolving There were other exhibition influences, too, Museum. He worked in architecture practices for a excellence. Like the other Biennale curators, Mitchell weight, post-and-beam timber structures, with wood architecture. Walker says, for example Michel Houellebecq’s novel few years in New Zealand and then in Hong Kong, 03. The Future sought to respond to the theme set by the event’s infill panels and big sheltering roofs. “This architec- Islands creative The Possibility of an Island. where he grew up, but when he decided to get director, Rem Koolhaas: ‘Absorbing Modernity: tural tradition was carried by migratory voyagers team: Top row, “The book might take a rather pessimistic view serious about model making he returned to Auckland from left: Bruce 1914–2014’. Koolhaas wanted national exhibitors through the islands of the Pacific Ocean, arriving Ferguson, Jessica of the future, but I do like the line about how ‘there and set up in business with then-partner Kenny to consider the effects of a century of modernity on with the Māori eight hundred years ago,” Mitchell Barter, Maggie exists, in the midst of time, the possibility of an Cheng. Ambe Masatake, another fellow student, is a Carroll, Kathy their architecture: what had been lost (“the erasure wrote. “It survived European colonisation and has Waghorn, Jon island’ – it probably sounds even better in the origi- long-time worker in Architecture + Design Fabrication adapted to modernity, rather than being subsumed Rennie and Minka nal French,” Walker says. “We’re from an island place, Workshop too. Ip. Bottom row, 02 by it.” This evolving tradition is what sets us apart, from left: Stephen after all. We started to think more about islands as In Hong Kong, Ip says, he found the scale of Mitchell posited in his exhibition, which he titled Brookbanks, Rewi sites of possibility for alternative ways of living, or model­-making too industrial. “I like making things Thompson and with my hands. Technology helps to speed up Last, Loneliest, Loveliest. Charles Walker. metaphors for the ways in which architects work, Mitchell’s show was not just a declaration of dif- Photo by Jane their practice cultures, and their relationships to the process, but I like the craft element of model- ference but also an argument for optimism. “Given Ussher. other practices. We are certainly playing with the makin­­g­, and there’s room for this approach in the world’s concerns about climate change and the romantic fictions, aesthetics and historical ambigu- New Zealand.” sustainable use of resources, and New Zealand’s own ities of the island metaphor, but as we developed the Ip says the commercial appetite for architectural worries about its seismic circumstances,” Mitchell exhibition concept we focused on the architectural models has increased over the past five years. “In wrote, “the Pacific architectural qualities of resil- profession as clusters of practices, as archipelagos.” the last property boom everyone wanted computer ience, flexibility and reparability have a lot to offer.” What else influenced the curatorial perspective? renders, but since the Global Financial Crisis people have gone back to physical models. We’ve been The message of Last, Loneliest, Loveliest was “I’ve always been a fan of Italo Calvino’s Invisible crazily busy since 2013. Architects have always liked matched by the exhibition medium. A tent-like form, Cities,” Walker says. “In the book, Marco Polo, the models. Real-estate agents also like the physical with fabric sides printed with images of Pacific and Venetian merchant who went to China in the thir- model, and clients like the craft. People may not New Zealand structures, took centre stage and the teenth century, is telling the Kublai Khan stories understand architecture, but they can understand theme of lightweight construction was continued in about the wondrous cities he’s seen on his travels. the object.” a small post-tensioned tower bearing architectural The emperor is entranced by these stories, and also Upwards of twenty of the architecture models in models. Visitors were greeted by a carved whatārangi, slightly suspicious of them. As it turns out, Polo is Future Islands have been made in Ip’s workshop in a single-poled Māori storehouse. In a wry exercise in describing his own city of Venice over and over again, inner-city Eden Terrace, Auckland, which houses cultural inversion, the whatārangi contained a model in different ways and from different perspectives. We several large 3-D printers, and the other exhibition of a European-style storehouse, the 1929 Auckland wondered whether we could do something like that models have been subjected to his quality control. War Memorial Museum, which itself houses the cele- about New Zealand.” Ip’s ambitions for Architecture + Design Fabrication brated Māori storehouse Hotonui. A treasure within Future Islands looks at what is happening now, Workshop include moving into larger-scale modelling a treasure, within yet another treasure – the Palazzo and what might happen,” Walker says. “It’s not meant and boutique joinery, but the crafting of architecture Pisani in Cannaregio, the venue for the 2014 New to be didactic, and does not set out to define New models remains core business. “You can still be an Zealand Biennale exhibition. Zealand architecture. We used the exhibition as a architect,” he says, “when you’re making models.” 01 03 12 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 13

and therefore continually evolving as suited to con- In 2012 Ngā Aho partnered with the Designers text, is a frequent request from Māori communities. Institute of New Zealand and introduced a new This is particularly relevant when forming con- Ngā Aho Award to the annual Best Design Awards. temporary agreements such as a memorandum of Designers submitting work for the Ngā Aho Award Weaving understanding, strategic partnerships, and resource have commented on their growth of understanding co-management agreements, and is reflected in in projects which have pursued solid cultural con- the contemporary application of Tiriti o Waitangi nection with iwi/Māori via relationship development (The Treaty of Waitangi). and ‘co-design’ process. This is described in the award It is important to understand that agreements parameters as “designers and clients working effec- many strands are regarded as guidance frameworks rather tively Kanohi ki te Kanohi–Pakahiwi ki te Pakahiwi, than prescriptions. All iwi are different, as are all face to face and shoulder to shoulder, exhibiting trust, Putting ‘our faces in our places’ is the aim projects­­. Knowledge is built from collecting and respect and rapport.” of a new design framework that will allow communicating learning from successive projects, This is a significant shift in mind-set for the rather than from a set ‘traditional’ approach. Cultural New Zealand design industry, both in championing 02 Māori design culture to be woven into strong approaches, if seen in this light, can be given the room an Aotearoa New Zealand design vernacular, and cultural landscapes. to be dynamic and globally connected. encouraging designers to challenge the commonly This approach to tikanga Māori is recognised in held assumption that the ‘designer knows best’ within the Treaty. The principle of ‘development’, the New a project. The co-design proposition opens up com- Zealand Law Commission stated in 2001, “recognises munication and value channels that support genuine that culture is not static. The integrity of tikanga dialogue and respect for each party’s needs within a Māori is not threatened; rather, it is enhanced by its project, creating new opportunities for unexpected ability to adapt and evolve as society changes.” outcomes or solutions to design problems. Committing time to defining collectively agreed At the forefront of design development in Māori upon principles at the outset of each project is an cultural landscapes is a steadily growing body of essential step towards ensuring bicultural outcomes work focusing on the articulation of Māori values By Desna Whaanga-Schollum with integrity. The agreement to a dynamic discus- and methodologies that illustrate respectful, recip- sion and place-making approach between those who rocal relationships. The Te Aranga Principles have are more mobile in their occupation patterns and been formally adopted by Auckland Council in the 03 indigenous communities supports the progression Auckland Design Manual and are now becoming Māori are committed to working towards reinstating of a built environment without the eradication of visible in collaborative Māori design processes and developing a physical and metaphysical under- distinctive place traits. The collaboration of the around the country. Ngā Aho is moving cultural and standing of cultural landscape within contemporary two understandings of place brings exciting new social objectives for Māori forward and enabling Aotearoa New Zealand. In January 2007 a set of opportunities for design growth, both in process design professional associations to help envision a guiding principles – the Te Aranga Principles – was and outcome. future Aotearoa New Zealand. developed by Māori professionals and supporters spanning many areas of design, arts, health, educa- tion, local and central government. The principles assert that “the development and articulation of the Māori cultural landscape will contribute to the health and well-being of all who reside in and visit Aotearoa – through realising our unique Aotearoa and Pacific identity.” 04 The Te Aranga Principles articulate a mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) view of the cultural land- scape as a holistic environment that informs and sculpts our identities: 02 & 03. Contemporary tukutuku panel “As Māori we have a unique sense of our ‘landscape’. work, designed by Alt Group and It includes past, present and future. Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti It includes both physical and spiritual dimensions. Whātua, Ngāi Tai Ki Tāmaki, at Te Oro, a It is how we express ourselves in our environment. new arts and music It connects whānau and whenua, flora and fauna, facility in Glen Innes, 01 Auckland. Tukutuku through whakapapa. panels – a type of It does not disconnect urban from rural. woven latticework – are traditionally used It transcends the boundaries of ‘land’scape into to decorate Māori other ‘scapes’: rivers, lakes, ocean and sky. whare nui (meeting houses). Photos It is enshrined in our whakapapa, pepeha [tribal courtesy of Alt Group. saying], tauparapara [incantation to begin a 04. Wooden block letters and carving 01. Te Uru speech], whaikōrero [a formal speech], karakia planning, architecture, landscape architecture, visual tribe), iwi (tribe) and mātāwaka (pan tribal) organ- tools developed Taumatua, a for Tourism New [ritual chants], waiata [song, chant], tikanga new centre of communications, product design and education. In isations. Māori design within Ngā Aho is framed as Zealand’s Pure Pākati governance and a [correct procedure, custom, lore, method], ngā essence, Ngā Aho creates a multi-disciplinary profes- applied research with the stakeholders’ participation branding campaign. meeting place for The typeface was kōrero a kui ma, a koroua ma [the words of our the Tūhoe people sional platform to progress complex cultural issues and evaluation being core to further development of designed by Phil in Te Urewera elders] and our mahi toi [art and architecture]. which span economic, social and ecological concerns. appropriate professional tools. Kelly, Rangi Kipa, National Park, in Karl Wixon and Kris It is not just where we live – it is who we are!” the central North This approach seeks to support wider Māori identity Ngā Aho also promotes the development of pol- Sowersby. 05. Spread Island. The Tūhoe aspirations in an Aotearoa where we can clearly see icy and structural industry approaches leading to from the catalogue iwi was adamant the for Lisa Reihana’s A few months after the promulgation of the Te Aranga new development ‘our faces in our places’. the regenerative presence of Māori culture in the exhibition, In Pursuit fully aligns with the Principles a hui (gathering) convened at Apumoana Ngā Aho sits alongside other mainstream design designed landscapes of Aotearoa. Seen through of Venus, Auckland tribe’s inherent con- Art Gallery Toi o Marae in Rotorua titled ‘Designing Māori Futures’. nection to the land professional associations such as the New Zealand capacity building of Māori design practitioners, in Tāmaki, 2015. Lisa – mana tangata. The The hui’s purpose was the establishment of a Society Institute of Architects, Designers Institute of New collaboration with their communities, this central Reihana will be New building, designed Zealand’s artist at of Māori Design Professionals as a vehicle to carry by Jasmax, is made Zealand, New Zealand Institute of Landscape principle of community connection within the Te the 57th Venice Art of Te Urewera forward the Te Aranga Principles. The outcome of Architects and the New Zealand Planning Institute Aranga Principles is termed ‘mana’. So, Ngā Aho Biennale in 2017. materials – native the hui, which was supported by the tertiary edu- timber from Te to support the needs of Māori design professionals provides “a platform for working relationships cation provider Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, was the Urewera, pine from and their Māori client bases. Central to this position where mana whenua values, world views, tikanga, Kaingaroa, clay formation of Ngā Aho, Māori Design Professionals from the region is actively maintaining reciprocal relationships with cultural narratives and visual identity can be appro- Incorporated Society. – and made by Māori communities and therefore providing respon- priately expressed in the design environment.” This Tūhoe hands. Photo ‘Ngā Aho’, a name originally provided by kaumātua courtesy of Arrow sive and skilled support. tikanga-based­ approach to Māori design for Ngā Aho (respected elder) Haare Williams, translates as ‘the International. Ngā Aho is based on Māori principles while offer- was seeded in conversations with Arnold Wilson, a many strands’. It suggests the weaving together of ing technical and analytical professional experience kaumātua of Māori art and design in Aotearoa. the many strands of Māori design culture: strategy, to stakeholders who are whānau (family), hapū (sub The ability for design discourse to be open-ended, 05 14 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 15

NEW ZEALAND JOHN SCOTT AWARD ARCHITECTURE MEDAL FOR PUBLIC Class of ’15 ARCHITECTURE

Each year, the New Zealand Architecture Awards recognise the very best new buildings from across the country. At the awards, the Project: The Blythe Performing Arts Centre Project: Christchurch Botanic Gardens pinnacle of architectural achievement is the New Zealand Architecture Visitor Centre Medal, which is awarded to a single building that the awards jury Architect: Stevens Lawson Architects regards as the ‘best of the best’. Below this tier, three awards, named Architect: Patterson Associates Location: Havelock North for the respected New Zealand Architects Sir Miles Warren, John Location: Christchurch Scott and Sir Ian Athfield, acknowledge excellence in the categories of commercial architecture, public architecture and housing. In 2015, Although four of the past six New Zealand Architecture Medals have gone to buildings in Christchurch is known in New Zealand as bucking the trend for national awards to be dominated by projects from Auckland (an acknowledgement of the more ‘The Garden City’, although a good part of its Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city, the big prizewinners were from complex projects and bigger budgets available in profusion of parks and gardens was ruined by a small North Island town and, perhaps less surprisingly, Canterbury, New Zealand’s largest city), 2015 proved that there earthquake-generated liquefaction. However, it was can be exceptions to the rule. You’ll find the Blythe to garden history that the architects looked when a region still in the process of rebuilding itself following the devastating Performing Arts Centre at a secondary school in modelling the elegant form of the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. the small North Island town of Havelock North. Botanic Gardens Visitor Centre. A botanic theme Designed by Stevens Lawson Architects, the grace- cuts through the building, illustrated most literally ful form perhaps alludes to the landscape of nearby though a dappled leaf shadow that was replicated on Te Mata Peak, or the sinuous shape of musical pre-cast concrete panels and in a flooring pattern instruments played within. It is a welcoming design comprised of blown-up images of plant microbes. that glows warmly against the dark. “On this pro­ The structure is thoroughly contemporary but it ject, client and architects reached for the sublime strongly connects with the typology of traditional – and they got there,” the awards jury said. garden greenhouse buildings. The awards jury described it as “an exhilarating contemporary take on the traditional garden greenhouse and an adroit and sympathetic piece of place-making” and it is an inspiring contribution to the public realm. Photo by Mark Smith Photo by Emma Smales Photo by 16 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 17

SIR MILES WARREN AWARD FOR COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTURE

Project: The Stranges & Glendenning Hill Building Replacement

Architect: Sheppard & Rout

Location: Christchurch

As the name suggests, this structure replaces another that once stood on site. Completing the Christchurch clean sweep of Named Awards, The Stranges Building (as it is commonly called) was one of the first post-quake commercial build- ings to rise in the rebuild. The building demon- strates a commitment to “creating a vibrant and rich inner-city development in a manner that goes beyond ordinary expectations,” the awards jury said. “Client and architect set out to make a cosmopolitan, industrious and joyful place on a prominent urban site, and they have succeeded admirably. With its interior courtyard offering sanctuary from traffic and street noise the building is a modern village with an urbane disposition.”

SIR IAN ATHFIELD AWARD FOR HOUSING

Project: Lyttelton Studio Retreat

Architect: Bull O’Sullivan Architecture

Location: Lyttelton

This building, said the 2015 awards jury, “is a labour of love and a testament to the design capacity, bloody-minded commitment and appetite for sheer hard work of its architect.” Hand-built by the archi- tect, the studio sits on a precipitous site that offers panoramic harbour views. A less welcome intrusion is the threat of errant boulders, dislodged from the heights of the Port Hills behind the building

Photo by Peter Cui Peter Photo by as the aftershocks of the Canterbury earthquakes continue. However, the studio is well reinforced with thick and heavy timber recycled from the deck of the demolished Lyttelton Wharf, which provides a ramp across the front of the building. With a nod to architect Michael O’Sullivan’s ancestry, the jury said that the building, “with its robust and straight- forward shell and finely crafted interior, perfectly expresses the dichotomy of pugnacity and poetry of

a Hibernian heritage.” Reynolds Patrick Photo by 18 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 19

Right For the 2013 A+W•NZ Exhibition held in Auckland, ‘Between Silos’, a timeline was prepared by architecture graduate Designing women Marianne Calvelo, assisted by Joy Roxas (design) and Lynda Simmons (curation, research). The timeline acknowledged the role of women in architecture across a long period. This selection of photography seek rightful place was drawn from the origi- nal documentation. Women have been part of the New Zealand architecture profession for 80 years – it’s time for some real inclusiveness, Esther James, active from 1923. Alison Shepherd (née Sleigh), active Margaret Munro (née Hamilton), Merle Victoria Greenwood, active Mary Edwards, active from 1938; Nancy Northcroft, active from 1940. says the campaigning organisation Architecture + Women · NZ. from 1927. active from 1931. from 1933; first architectural degree third architectural degree graduate. graduate.

Lillian Chrystall (née Laidlaw), active Helen Tippet, active from 1950. Muriel Lamb (née Sanders), active Stephanie Bonny, active from 1976; Marilyn Reynolds, active from 1976; Fiona Christeller (centre), active from 1947. from 1952. prolific architecture writer. prolific architecture writer. from 1977. By Lucy Treep and Lynda Simmons principal areas. The Chrystall Excellence Award “rec- ognises the extraordinary talent of women who have led expanded and full careers in architecture over several decades.” The Wirihana Emerging Leadership What’s the place, status and future of women in the Award highlights “the extraordinary talent of women architecture profession? Architecture+Women•NZ who remain in the field of architecture beyond the (A+W•NZ) brings together women trained in archi- first decade after graduation” – historically a defining tecture and seeks to raise their profile through net- period of professional practice. Finally, the Munro working, events, publishing and the formation of Diversity Award salutes “an outstanding career which policy. It’s free to join and while the organisation has continually supported and/or promoted diversity has a serious intent, participation is intended to be in architecture, and recognises the invisible work enjoyable as well as purposeful. that goes into supporting the entire architectural Since its inception in 2011 A+W•NZ has gone from community.” strength to strength, gaining respect in the industry, The winners in the inaugural A+W•NZ Awards pro- universities and from within the wider architecture gramme were Cecile Bonnifait of Bonnifait + Giesen Amanda Reynolds, active from 1977. Ellen Brinkman, active from 1978. Claire Chambers (second from right), active from 1978. Min Hall, active from 1978. community. Informed by the current global wave of AtelierWorkshop (Wirihana Emerging Leadership interest in gender equity, A+W•NZ provides a forum Award), Justine Clark and Gill Mathewson of advo- based on inclusivity, aims to widen the scope of what cacy group Parlour (Munro Diversity Award), and it means to be an architect and seeks to find ways to Julie Stout of Mitchell & Stout Architects (Chrystall sustain and promote the already active architectural Excellence Award). community in New Zealand. In the few years since it was set up A+W•NZ has A+W•NZ acknowledges the lineage of groups created a structure that provides guidance, discussion, and individuals who have, over the past century, visibility and positive role-modelling for women and constructed a strong platform for the strengthen- men alike through facilitating events and publications ing of gender awareness in New Zealand. Groups around a healthy reassessment of industry ‘norms’. such as The Women’s Institute of Architecture in The relevance of a gendered architectural commu- the 1970s and the Constructive Agenda committee nity in the early twenty-first century could be ques- of the 1990s had a significant influence on the pro- tioned in a time when sexism is frequently considered Above A spread female, have the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree from the 2014 fession, and individual pioneers such as Marilyn to belong to another era, and any related problems A+W•NZ Awards in architecture, spatial design, or similar, and must Reynolds (née Hart), Lillian Chrystall (née Laidlaw) have already been resolved. Yet, while they are often catalogue. Held either have trained in or reside in New Zealand. every three years, Sarah Treadwell, active since 1977; Jane Aimer and Lindley Naismith, active since 1980; from 2002 in practice Victoria Univerity of Wellington, class of ’88, women graduates. From left: Julie Stout, principal of Mitchell & and, latterly, Dr Sarah Treadwell of The University invisible to some in the architectural community, the awards provide Membership is open to those in practice or not, and first woman to join permanent teach- together as Scarlet Architects. Pauline Ching, Jane Kelly, Julia Gatley, Claire Deacon and Tania Redl. Stout Architects. Winner of A+W·NZ’s an alternative of Auckland have changed the landscape of gender many barriers to inclusivity and equality in the work- A+W•NZ’s events are for the entire architecture com- ing staff at The University of Auckland. Chrystall Excellence Award in 2014. structure that can and architecture. place still exist. celebrate careers, munity (and, yes, men are always welcome). A+W•NZ is building a research-based online archive The two core aims behind A+W•NZ are to promote which contribute to A+W•NZ’s activities fall into into four categories: the built environ- of women in New Zealand’s architectural history. One visibility in the field of architectural practice, and to ment in many and networks – online database, social media, and online of the organisation’s first initiatives was a national aim for an inclusive architectural practice culture. diverse ways, rather newsletters; events – exhibitions, awards, symposia, than to a single exhibition in 2013. This showcase provided a twen- This means enabling those typically less visible to object or a building. lectures, breakfast talks, waiata mornings and site ty-year update on the work of female architects and have access to, and become part of, their architec- Photo by Catherine visits; research – books (Architecture in an Expanded women associated with architecture since the staging tural communities. One example of reducing barri- Griffiths. Field, 2015; A+W•NZ Awards 2014; Snapshot 500 in 1993 of Constructed Agenda: 60 Years of Women in ers is the inclusion of Māori tikanga (protocol) in all and Gentle Foundations, 2013), journal and magazine Architecture, an exhibition that marked the cente- A+W•NZ events to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the articles, oral histories, and the A+W•NZ timeline; nary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. Focusing Treaty of Waitangi). Younger A+W•NZ members say and policy – guidelines for institutes, practices and on the huge advancements women have made in many they welcome opportunities to meet women with government submissions. architectural fields in a relatively short period of time, more advanced architectural careers. Involvement in It is hoped that discussions around gender, work- A+W•NZ works with optimism for future change to A+W•NZ has, in turn, opened the door to leadership place culture and policy can have a wider effect on the workplace culture, and not only for women. possibilities elsewhere. visibility of many other diverse groups. The intention The inaugural A+W•NZ Awards, which were There are three criteria for membership of is for visibility and inclusiveness to apply to all who Women in Architecture, Wellington, 1991. From left: Emma Alcock, Shannon Left to right: Ellen Brinkmann, Carolyn Smith, Mary Walsh (seated), Rachel A+W•NZ becomes an Incorporated Society, 2014. Back: Nicola Zimmerman, Jeory, Anna Kemble Welsh, Anna Dykes, Katherine Gebbie, Joanne Kelly, Beecroft, Jane Matthews, not unidentified, Amanda Reynolds (seated), Elispeta Heta, Megan Rule, Linda Tyler, Lindley Naismith, Julie Wilson, Jane established in 2014, celebrates achievement in three A+W•NZ. Would-be members must identify as make their lives in architecture. Deb Cranko. Debra Penn, not unidentified. Aimer, Wendy Shacklock. Front: Lynda Simmons. 20 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 21 Adopt, adapt, adept In a small country in a globalised economy, New Zealand product designers must draw on a legacy of innovation and originality to create sustainable businesses.

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04 05 By Michael Smythe Altered states 01. Wooden bowl, Originals ‘in’ called kumete; Around five hundred years of isolation led to Māori Auckland War Exporters always faced exposure to global com­ evolving a culturally confident design language. Memorial Museum, petition. When New Zealand-manufactured prod- photo by Krzysztof Adapting to available materials and a colder climate Pfeiffer.02. Basalt ucts could not compete on price, other approaches WELL-CRAFTED New Zealand is a nation of immigrants discovered led to the design of the ‘thatched’ pihepihe (rain toki (adze); Te to survival drove viability. With rapid deregulation Papa Tongarewa, by Polynesians, named by the Dutch and colonised cape) described in the ‘Journal of the Right Hon. Otago Museum of the domestic market from the mid-1980s, some STORIES by the British. Its inhabitants voluntarily travelled a Sir Joseph Banks’, in 1769, as “well adapted for their collection, photo companies became importers while others opted for by Athol McCredie. By Michael Barrett long distance equipped for survival. Their choice of convenience”. 03. Copper innovation. imported equipment was informed by practicality Carved, tattooed and painted patterns told mean- conical kettle; The When Ralta was bought by Sunbeam Australia, the 06 Kauri Museum and cultural reassurance. Who they were and how ingful stories. In The Grammar of Ornament, 1856, c­ ollectio­­ n­ ,­ photo by New Zealand plant became the ‘centre of excellence’ It’s apt that David Trubridge arrived of steam-bent timber. In creating they functioned was embedded in their baggage. design theorist Owen Jones extolled a Māori paddle Andrea Hemmins. for electric jug manufacture. A 1991 plastic cordless The first settlers, arriving from East Polynesia as rivalling the works of the highest civilisation. He 04. Shacklock stove; jug was designed with sophisticated tooling and auto- in New Zealand by way of sea, in it, Trubridge drew on an “obvious John H Angus. the manner of his great pioneering resource” – his naval architecture around 1250 AD, brought tools for hunting, gathering, wrote: “There is not a line upon its surface misapplied.” ‘The Ironmasters’, mation, utilised to compete with cheap labour over- scanned 1973. predecessors. Those who brave training – and a new one – com- 09 10 crafting, building, making more tools and connect- When iron founder Henry Eli Shacklock was 05. Thatched seas. By 1994 a cheaper model was being produced the oceans require a sense of puter design software. Body Raft, ing to ancestors and gods. Possibly the oldest found asked to imitate an imported stove in 1873 he not pihepihe (rain cape); in China. New Zealand production ceased in 2004. adventure, a can-do mind-set and a picked up by Italian furniture com- Auckland War artefact made from a local material is a basalt toki only modified it to work with the local lignite coal, Memorial Museum, Designer Kim Scott left Sunbeam/Ralta in 1998 talent for invention. Since coming pany Cappellini, was a success, (adze) designed to be lashed to a carved haft. Its ele- but also made it easier to install and use. Its success photo by Krzysztof to set up IDEA Developments. In 2013 he developed to New Zealand in 1985, Trubridge but it illustrated the difficulty of Pfeiffer.06. Speedee gantly authoritative simplicity exemplifies the desire required Shacklock to set up New Zealand’s first dedi- electric jug; Smythe an electronically innovative Turkish tea maker with has demonstrated all these qual- making furniture in New Zealand to honour its user, purpose and maker. cated manufacturing plant. Many tinsmiths made the collection, photo a form influenced by the traditional tea glass. Its suc- ities, developing a design career for European export markets. “The by Michael Smythe. that has overcome the tyranny of distance is so great, and so hard to The lack of metal or ceramic vessels did not copper conical kettle which applied the maximum 07. Cordless electric cess was compromised when the Chinese partner deprive Polynesian cultures of hot water. Immersion surface area to the hot surface for a speedy result. jug; photo by IDEA increased the manufacturing price. distance which plagues many local overcome,” Trubridge says. 07 elements in the form of heated stones were placed From 1939, import restrictions, requiring at least Developments. Many New Zealand product innovators have mas- export industries. However, the export riddle would 08. Turkish tea Trubridge and the sea have soon be solved with light-weight, in water-filled wooden bowls, called kumete in this fifty per cent local content, introduced an era of pro- maker; photo by tered the art of designing in New Zealand for global had a long relationship and to this sustainably manufactured lumi- country, with small spouts and tipping handles. tectionism. Complacency led to much ‘me-too’ medi- IDEA Developments. markets and manufacturing in low-cost and/or close- 09. Methven show- 11 day oceanic motifs permeate his naires. ‘Coral’, the first design, is Captain James Cook’s 1769 voyage of discov- ocrity with clever design largely focused on adapting erware. 10. Fisher & to-market countries. For example, 130 years on from Paykel DishDrawer. work. His design career began in constructed from a single com- ery was a British Enlightenment project driven by overseas ideas to small-scale production. 11. Medical humid- its founding, Methven has survived by shifting focus the early 1970s with the study of ponent: a geometric polyhedron, The Royal Society’s desire to find the hypothetical Harry Urlwin’s Speedee electric jugs, produced ifier by Fisher & from making plumbing products to creating user- naval architecture in the English repeated sixty times to create a Paykel Healthcare. southern continent. When these visitors appeared around 1940, adapted efficiently to the electric 12. Life Chair by friendly tapware and soothing shower experiences. city of Newcastle. Instead of sphere. The design was devised over the horizon the tangata whenua (people of the safety elements made under licence to Swan. With Formway Design. Ergonomic value transformed Formway Furniture taking a shipyard job, however, he while Trubridge was teaching 13. Gallagher bought a ruined house, renovated in Perth. With some time on his land) named themselves Māori (normal) and the imported enamelled Judgeware jug bodies, they were Electric Fence unit. from a small manufacturer in1982 to a globally com- others Pākehā (from ‘Pākepākehā’, a mythical fair- easier to pour while keeping hands away from steam. 14. David Trubridge petitive 21st-Century design studio licensing global it, teaching himself joinery on the hands he made the structure for lights, Coral and way, and from there began making fun. “It taught me about the way of skinned human-like being). Meanwhile, in the UK and USA, consumers opted for Kōura. suppliers. The Life and Generation work chair pro­ The second wave of settlers, preceded by Anglican electrified kettles; it took half a century for the rest jects built a relationship with international furni- furniture. Before long, reasonable using the computer to unroll and create thin-skinned structures that missionaries (circa 1814), equipped themselves in of the world to catch on to the logic of upstanding ture company Knoll. Andrew Cogan, Knoll CEO, in quantities of “good stuff” was being produced, some of which was col- through compound curvature are much the same way as the first. Shiploads of settlers electric jugs. conversation with Formway’s David Thomson, said 08 13 lected by London’s V&A Museum. really strong, very light weight and arriving from 1840 set about creating (agri)cultural he valued the way Formway’s isolation generates a Despite this early success, use minimal material. The obvious comfort. Lush native bush was converted into rolling “clear, visionary and creative perspective”. adventure called. Yacht bought and application for it was lighting.” fields of imported grass to feed imported sheep. Some Fisher & Paykel Appliance’s DishDrawer, launched 12 family packed, he embarked on ‘Coral’, like later lighting prod- of the timber was converted into familiar furniture in 1997, was its first ground-up product develop- an open-ended journey that took ucts, is easily transportable. Made by tradesmen armed with design manuals handed ment driven by creating the end-user experience. him through the Pacific Islands to in New Zealand, the small boxes down through apprenticeships. This cultural shift to cross-disciplinary, user-centric New Zealand. After accepting an are flat-pack shipped to market for New Zealand’s colonial cultural confusion was design thinking then delivered the CookSurface and artist’s residency in Hawke’s Bay, he assembly by the buyer. Trubridge shown to the world at the 1862 London Exhibition CoolDrawer as components of the ‘Social Kitchen’. oscillated between art, architecture calls it a “seed system”. “Why put in the form of a Louis XV-style escritoire made by From 2012, Fisher & Paykel Appliance’s New Zealand and furniture, looking for a viable one tree in a truck to transport it when you can fill a truck with Bohemian immigrant Anton Seuffert and featuring operation became the design and R&D centre for its creative focus. Trubridge describes his place in thousands of seeds and have fun exquisitely inlaid native timbers. It was later pre- new Chinese owner Haier. the creative spectrum as “further watching them grow? That’s the sented to Queen Victoria. The development of a world-leading medical away from hardcore engineering, key to it.” humidifier led to Fisher & Paykel Healthcare becom- designing totally functional things” Trubridge’s latest lighting collec- ing a separate company in 2001. The innovative com- and closer to fine art, where “it’s all tion is inspired by diatoms, “stun- pany consistently rates as a top business performer. about ideas or aesthetics, and the ningly beautiful” organisms, such Back on the farm, Gallagher electric fence systems practicalities are very limited.” as plankton, which are the basis of have evolved to dominate global markets through Trubridge’s early New Zealand the oceanic food chain. design leadership. Both companies still manufacture work ranges from late-1980s’ furni- “The opportunity to tell their in New Zealand. ture with clear Pacific Island influ- story through design makes them At the designer-maker end of the spectrum, David ences and references – “tying chair a worthwhile subject,” he explains. “I can’t design something just for Trubridge has reached international ‘rock-star’ sta- frames together with string lash- ings as Pacific canoes and houses the sake of it. I can’t just design tus from his Hawke’s Bay studio, factory and tourist are” – to sculptural early-1990s’ a new table or a chair. It doesn’t attraction base. His Pacific-inspired kitset lighting pieces, which he says were “almost feel right. But, if there’s a story to products [see sidebar] add the joy of making to the as far away from functional that I’ve tell and a reason to do it – in this customer experience. got – although there is still vestigial case the stories of diatoms and In an increasingly globalised market, New Zealand function there. That was good fun.” why oceans are so important to designers are creating a sustainable position as orig- His first real break was ‘Body life – then it starts to become much inal, cross-disciplinary, fresh thinkers. Raft’, a sculptural, curved lattice more interesting.” 01 02 14 22 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 23 Object lessons Jewellery leads the way in contemporary New Zealand object design, writes a leading curator, but furniture makers, glass-makers and ceramicists aren’t far behind.

ART OF THE LANDSCAPE

01 03 By Michael Barrett By Philip Clarke The current practices of two, formerly Auckland Images courtesy of stocked in stores all over the world, more and more artist except where based, New Zealand furniture designers, Katy Wallace indicated. of his sales are online and he uses Instagram and Over the past 150 years, the varied the World: Beyond the Surface’, and Phil Cuttance, demonstrate the wide range of 01. ‘Wavy Bowl’ Twitter to generate traffic to his online store and the possibilities available to twenty-first-century design- (2008), a ceramic workshops that he teaches at his studio. His practice landscapes of Aotearoa New begin on the beach. The artist work by Hana Zealand have inspired plenty of scours the foreshore and eroding Contemporary jewellery currently dominates the ers. Both have moved from New Zealand’s biggest city, Rakena. Image is finely calibrated so that he is able to make “things courtesy of artists; however, while the land scarps for small rocks and pieces New Zealand object design scene in terms of inter- Auckland – Cuttance to London and Wallace to the Masterworks Gallery. in small batches locally and sell them globally”. has inspired many to pick up of clay with interesting properties, national and local reputation. Paris-based editor provincial city of Gisborne. Cuttance’s geographic 02. ‘Insignia’ Studio glass-making became established in New pencil and brush, fewer have been colours and textures. A process collection (1997) by of the global Art Jewelry Forum Benjamin Lignel transition matches a change in his design practice Warwick Freeman. Zealand from the 1970s, largely inspired by the inspired to reach down to the of refinement follows, impurities has described New Zealand’s jewellery sector as from furniture to objects. He says he “shifted to mak- post-Second World War American studio glass move- earth, take it in hand, and use it as and sediment are removed, and “small but powerful” and “turbo charged”. The pre- ing smaller objects after showing furniture in 2009 ment, with vessels and sculptural forms being the muse and medium. the clays become pigments. In an mier global prize for contemporary jewellery, the at the Milan furniture fair. It was a relatively quiet predominant output. The leading ‘voice’ in a newer For artist Miriam van Wezel, the earlier collection, these pigments Françoise van den Bosch Award, has been awarded year post-recession, and I received a lot of feedback generation of glass practitioners is the Crystal Chain land – or more precisely the varied were applied to Belgian linen, with to seventeen recipients, and three of them are New where people said they loved my weld furniture but Gang, the collaborative practice of Leanne Williams clays of Orua Bay, on Auckland’s the colours of the land interlaced Zealand residents. These Kiwis – Warwick Freeman, were interested in smaller pieces. I therefore made and Jim Dennison. Their practice looks to the opu- Manukau Harbour – serves as with subtly-stitched lines that recall imagined shorelines. In van Wezel’s Karl Fritsch and Lisa Walker – are the Award’s only the weld vases and discovered I could sell them all lence and history of glass in terms of their preference both inspiration and raw material. Throughout her career, van Wezel forthcoming exhibition, the colours recipients living outside Europe. over! I still do furniture on commission, but since for working with lead crystal and the chandelier and has been fascinated by the colours are layered upon hard substrates The global profile of contemporary New Zealand then I’ve concentrated on objects as they are easier decanter forms for which they are noted. and textures of the ground plane. with each layer of paint polished jewellery is remarkable for a population of just to get to a wider audience.” The Crystal Chain Gang’s work also addresses Born in the Netherlands, and edu- before the application of another 4.65 million. Contributory factors include the local Wallace, whose practice is still furniture focused, New Zealand’s colonial and post-colonial experience. cated at London’s Royal Academy, to create depth. well-networked jewellery scene working hard to says she is stimulated by “what is just in front of me”. The hunting and collecting enthusiasms of colonists van Wezel moved to New Zealand Orua Bay’s rocks and clays yield look outward, and the career of respected jeweller Her current work transforms objects that have been led to the decimation of some indigenous species and 04 in the 1980s. The daughter of an a surprising spectrum of colour. Warwick Freeman, whose international profile has discarded, deemed obsolete and consigned to thrift the introduction of exotic species. The ‘crystals’ of iron foundry director, she recalls In her studio, small squares of rich opened many doors, locally and abroad. Freeman shops. Through processes of subtraction, addition, their chandeliers have the form of either bird wings being surprised when she first red, yellow and burnt orange are is currently the New Zealand artist, working in any multiplication and the division of her ‘raw mate- or dead birds, which both critique the excesses of the encountered the iron-rich sands of bookended by a surprisingly deep media, most represented in museum collections rial’, new works are created. These new works often hunting and collecting of Empire and celebrate the Auckland’s West Coast beaches. metallic black and a pure white. The materials, says van Wezel, “all internationally. While his work eschews a traditional possess the characteristics of the generic, in terms chandelier excess and monumentality of Empire. “I thought I’d ended up in a foundry again,” she laughs. “It was behave slightly differently”. Ceding notion of preciousness, its employment of sophisti- of their familiarity, and the idiosyncratic in terms This paradox renders the artists’ chandeliers elegant very familiar, and I started wonder- control is part and parcel of the cated Modernism, antipodean materials and com- of form, and have an embedded sense of human at first glance and menacing upon close inspection. ing how I could bring that into my process, as is being open to unex- mentary on local culture creates a new and palpable and object connectedness because of their upcy- Jim Cooper’s pop culture-inspired figures and fig- work. As an immigrant you lose pected outcomes. “I find staying sense of jewellery’s value. cled nature. Wallace finds her new home city a rich urative ceramic installations, such as ‘Sgt P’, defy the your identity, so you start again with one material fascinating,” Given the small domestic audience for contempo- resource for her required raw material, which in itself ordinances of Anglo-Oriental ceramics in that they and have to make connections with she says. “You keep discovering rary object design, studio-scaled production predom- is a powerful source of stimulation. screech, rather than being ‘tasteful’. They set out to new places.” that you can dig deeper into your inates in terms of applied arts makers and designers. Both of these designers aim to imbue their pro- provoke mirth, and puncture – rather than promote – 05 Over the following years, van understanding of the material. I see Within such a landscape the location of the greatest ductions with uniqueness and a sense of emotional notions of worth. Cooper’s well-made loose and lively 03. ‘Someone Else’s Chair’ by Katy Wezel would explore notions of it as a very similar thing to estab- Wallace. 04. ‘Faceture’ vases (2012) and place through colour. In ‘Colours of lishing a relationship with anything vitality has often been found around practitioners, like connection. Cuttance says he likes the idea of “adding figures (he’s a former university ceramics teacher) object-making machine by Phil Cuttance. Our History’ (2012), one of her larg- or anyone. It takes time to get to Freeman, who maintain a high level of international value to each piece by making it in a way [so that] celebrate contemporary life as did nineteenth-cen- The handmade, faceted vessels are produced individually by casting resin into know a person; it takes time to get awareness and connectivity, and those whose practices each piece is unique in also telling the story of how tury­ ­Staffordshire figures which chronicled events est works, fifty-two coloured discs a handmade mould, which is then manually were painted onto the concrete to know a material.” are singular, often to the point of being idiosyncratic. it was made”. While Cuttance’s works continue to be and personalities of the day. Ceramics was previously manipulated to create each object’s unique form, before casting. 05. ‘Angelshare columns supporting a motorway Upon one large, finished yel- the dominant New Zealand applied arts practice in Chandelier’ (2015) by Crystal Chain Gang. viaduct across an Auckland park. low-coloured work, framed in fine terms of economic clout and practitioner numbers; 06. ‘Hooks’ (1993–2013), in silver, gold, Broadly speaking, the discs define black steel, a minutely detailed line greenstone, whalebone and bone, by however, the slow demise of tertiary training is pres- Warwick Freeman. periods of historical colour use in has been etched. It follows a barely ently limiting the sector. New Zealand, and their progression visible contour line on the face of A new generation of Māori ceramics practitioners – they rotate around the columns, the plywood substrate to which is engaged in a fresh and free way with ceramics and rise and fall, and change colour in a pigment has been applied. Perhaps seem less concerned with prior prescriptive mak- sequence – enlivens a difficult envi- it’s an imagined boundary in the ing ideologies. One of the sources of vitality within ronment. At the other end of the shifting sea of yellow ochre, the contemporary jewellery, and New Zealand making scale, van Wezel’s brooch designs profile of the soft sandstone cliff from which the clay was released, and designing in general, is its participation in wider for two Venice Architecture More information Biennale exhibitions show an adroit or a reference to the elemental and national cultural conversations. Contemporary ability to shift scale. power of time upon land, always Māori art-making and object design have for the www.objectspace.org.nz The body of van Wezel’s work, eroding, shifting and changing most part been very separate domains and pursuits. www.katywallace.co.nz however, investigates connections shape. As with many artists, van This new generation of Māori ceramists seems to to the landscape by employing Wezel is unwilling to impose the- collapse this historical breach and draw on ceram- www.philcuttance.com materials that are part of the land- matic significance onto her work. ics and Māori cultural understandings in a way that scape. The works that comprise her In her case, you could safely say www.crystalchaingang.co.nz signals a new era for object design in New Zealand. forthcoming exhibition, ‘Beyond that the message is in the medium. 02 06 24 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 25

01. An illustration by Tom Dobinson, win- 02. In 2015, Student Design Awards winner 03. An illustration by Hannah Broatch, ner of the 2014 Student Design Awards. James Durcan’s project, ‘Indigenous Digital highly commended in the 2015 student ‘Wharf Dwellers – an Expose of Lyttelton’, Craft: Expressing Indigenous Māori Culture’, design awards. Hannah’s project, ‘Housing Tom’s project, is an investigation of the combined contemporary digital fabri- for Construction Workers in Ahmedabad, character of the port town of Lyttelton cation techniques with traditional Māori India’, was based on research into such where he grew up and a proposal for craft methods and design approaches. His labour colonies in the city of Ahmedabad. overcoming the physical separation that proposed structure, conceived in collabo- Her work aims to ameliorate the living now exists between town and port. The ration with Poverty Bay’s Ngāi Tamanuhiri conditions of labourers and their families tri-partite work establishes a ‘design lan- iwi, is intended for an off-grid coastal site by improving the quality of housing and guage’, imagines a house that would suit near Gisborne. This sequence of images providing basic infrastructure and social the ‘persona’ of artist Bill Hammond – a shows James assembling and operating a spaces. local ‘fringe-dwelling maverick’ artist – and self-made additive printing machine, which proposes a design for a public wharf that would use clay from the proposed site to 04. In 2014, with ‘Topology of a Phantom would surmount a strip of port land and so construct modular elements for an amenity City’, Student Design Awards finalist Hamish allow citizens to reach the coast. building canopy. Beattie drew upon his experience working in a United Nations Human Settlements Programme in Nairobi, where the digital building game Minecraft was used as a participatory design tool. Hamish’s scheme, presented via spectacular models and ren- derings, including this impressive robotic structure, explored the use of such readily available tools as a generator of designs for facilities in ‘informal’ communities, intro- ducing self-design to communities which are already self-built.

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Imaginations with few format, four final-year students from each of 05. Frances Cooper, a Student Design New Zealand’s three schools of architecture (at Awards finalist in 2012, winner of boundaries, keen social the Architectural Review’s Global the University of Auckland, Unitec and Victoria Architecture Graduate Award in 2013 awareness and deft digital and and, in 2014, a member of the creative Bright University of Wellington) are exposed to appraisal team for New Zealand’s first national physical modelling skills have and critique by judges with strong professional or exhibition at the Biennale Architettura, academic credentials. From the twelve finalists, proposed in ‘Architecture of the become bywords of the annual Synthetic, the Spectacular and the a winner is chosen and two highly commended Belligerent’ a public re-appropriation student design awards. of a prime waterfront site in downtown awards are conferred. Without fail, as the images Auckland. The Seafaring Building, futures on these pages illustrate, the students make no pictured, was a component of her small plans. In recent years, their final-year proj- radical, low-impact redevelopment. What better way to gauge the health of the architec- ects presented have traversed subjects as varied tural profession in Aotearoa New Zealand than by as a post-earthquake alternative parliament in a testing the ideas, ambitions and capabilities of the ground-scraping fortress, humanitarian architec- country’s best and brightest students? The NZIA ture, super brothels, urban acupuncture, vertical Cadimage Group Student Design Awards is an farming, wetland conservation and additive con- annual awards programme run by the New Zealand struction. The images on these pages are just a taste Institute of Architects. Through its presentation of recent student works, visit nzia.co.nz to see more.

05 26 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 27

Inside the New Zealand Room The New Zealand Room, a hosting and event space at Palazzo Bollani, New Zealand’s venue at the Biennale Architettura 2016, was established with the assistance of the people and companies on these pages.

What are some qualities that you think might distinguish 02 At the Palazzo Bollani, in the New Zealand Room, a New Zealand approach to the interior form? the natural jute rugs on display are from Nodi’s ‘Staples’ range. They “all about the woven texture, This is a complex question. I don’t think the right way to which quietly adds depth and character to a answer it is to try and define how a New Zealand interior DESIGNER WOOD space”, says the designer ‘looks’ but more, as you said, what kind of approach would make it a New Zealand interior. I think materiality is a key criterion as it’s one of the most fundamental aspects of interior design and, if well considered, can add significant depth and validation to any space. I think working with local Visitors to the New Zealand Room at the Palazzo Bollani suppliers and trades is also an important aspect to building will be among the first people to come into contact that framework around a New Zealand interior – it says a lot with a new product that is the result of collaboration about what we produce, how we produce it, and why our between New Zealand-based designer David Trubridge work looks the way it does. And, as with architecture, context and Abodo, a company innovating in sustainable timber is equally important as a response to the environment in use throughout Australia and New Zealand, Asia, Africa which you’re working. and Europe. David Trubridge is a designer well known for his Any observations on the difference in interior practice ethical and sustainable approach to product design. In between home and abroad? 2015, Daniel Gudsell, marketing director of Abodo, heard Certainly in Europe, it seems, that part of establishing yourself Trubridge speaking at a Living Building Futures Institute in larger cities is based around renovation, refurbishment, conference, and they found a shared philosophy towards and how you reinterpret heritage-building fabric. A large part design and sustainability. He approached the designer in of these projects are concerned specifically with the interior 2015, with a proposal to come up with a range of natu- so you have incredibly well-studied architects in fast-paced ral timber facades with multiple uses that could fit into 04 international design-capitals working for the early parts of Abodo’s ‘Elements’ range. their careers on, more often, high-end interior jobs, which “Abodo’s wood products are locally grown, FSC- is a very different model to New Zealand. The abundance of certified and free from common wood preservatives – HANDMADE 01 space and relative privacy in New Zealand is an incredible and thus are in line with David’s own design ethos,” says asset. It sort of goes without saying that as a young architect Gudsell. “From a market perspective we felt there was a IMPERFECTION in New Zealand your first project may well be a greenfield niche for decorative screening and facades with a point THINKING SPACE build on some remote part of coastline – and that shouldn’t be of difference – in this case a combination of Abodo’s taken for granted. Given New Zealand’s growing requirement unique materials and David Trubridge’s nature-inspired for more diverse housing types it will be interesting to see if design flair.” 03 Rufus Knight, designer of the New Zealand this trend continues or whether people will focus more on After a design workshop with David Trubridge, a Textile designer and Nodi co-founder Olivia Smith is Room and other ancillary spaces at Palazzo refurbishing existing properties or demand responses to more range of four panels incised with abstracted forms on a mission to bring ‘handmade imperfection’ to the Bollani, home of New Zealand’s exhibition at the urban, densely-populated, sites. derived from New Zealand native plants and flax weav- world through rugs. 2016 Architettura Biennale, discusses recent ing were devised. The characteristics of pōhuehue, a PRECISION ENGINEERING Born and raised in Wellington, Smith began her work and design philosophy. What about the rooms at Palazzo Bollani, what have you sprawling coastal groundcover, led to a geometric studies in textile design in New Zealand and completed done there? panel which can be mirrored or rotated to create sev- them in Milan. Nodi, she says, means knots in Italian. The rooms that I have curated in the Palazzo Bollani sit eral effects. The long, flat leaves of maukoro, a native “While I was a completing my studies in Milan, I was alongside the New Zealand exhibition Future Islands. Over broom, are reflected in a panel with strong simple and making hand-knotted necklaces from fabric,” Smith Rufus, what led you to interiors, specifically? the six months of the Biennale, we expect the New Zealand symmetrical outlines. The distinctive gourd of the nīkau, Core Builders Composites is a company whose name is One of the company’s first projects after setting up shop says. “I became fascinated with the form of the knot There are certain moments or influences I can point to that Room and Reading Room to be utilised by patrons, sponsors, a palm found in the coastal and lowland forests of New inextricably linked with the precise fabrication required in New Zealand was the construction and delivery of 12 and this word, ‘nodi’. I decided that if I was to start a make me sure this is ‘why’ I decided to focus on interiors but and members of the international diplomatic community Zealand, has been extended into a tear-shaped motif for a new generation of Americas Cup yachts. However, identical, high-performance AC45 catamarans – fast and business that’s what it would be called. Its meaning fits it is mostly just intuition. Specifically, I remember Joris-Karl for entertainment and hosting. The New Zealand Room is a (see below), and Abodo’s Hex Weave panel has a design the seemingly specific skill of composite manufacturing is, nimble wing-sail catamarans that ushered in the new era perfectly with handmade rugs.” Huysmans Á Rebours, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Sculpting in Time, base for cultural events, symposia on architecture and design abstracted from the form and patterning of traditional increasingly, applicable to other industries. of Americas Cup racing. Nodi sat in Smith’s mind for few years, becoming a and Claire Bishop’s Installation Art as definite signposts. I’m innovation and a place for New Zealand companies that are Māori flax-weaving. Susan Lake, Core Composite Structural Engineer, says “They also provided a practical platform for a world reality only after she spent six months in India. “The really interested in film and theatre and, to some extent, I active in the European market to showcase their businesses “These façades and screens can be used to add the potential for digital manufacturing techniques inte- series, as they could fit into a 40-foot container,” explains fascination with India began while I was in Milan as an think that the temporality and parameters within set design to a broad international audience. The Reading Room is an warmth and beauty to a range of exterior and inte- grated with Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) Lake. “From our perspective, another real win was that intern with an American woman who was using block- were – and still are – a large influence on my interior focus. informal space, adjacent to the exhibition entry, where visitors rior applications,” says Gudsell. “Like the rest of the machine milling is potentially endless. Core can cover we were able to work with the wider New Zealand marine printed textiles out of India. It opened my eyes to the Also, interiors have always seemed to have an inherent multi- can take pause and engage with a number of publications products we supply, they fit our healthy, durable and “everything from yachts to milking platforms and all sorts of and composites industry to make a very ambitious project traditional methods being practiced there to create disciplinarity, which crosses so freely into music, art, sculp- related to architecture and design in New Zealand. The design renewable ethos. They are lasting natural products, things in between”, Lake says. Evidence of the “in between” happen within only one year.” unique textiles, fabrics and woven goods.” ture. That has always been hugely appealing. Also, it comes approach for the rooms was very straightforward. The aim was free of toxins that meet the needs of the present with- comes in the form of milling tools created for for campervan Because of the performance demands placed on these In India, Smith spent time establishing relation- down to where I feel I can be most engaged and I find it very to showcase New Zealand design in an understated, welcom- out disadvantaging future generations. Many exterior and superyacht manufacturing industries; a full-size replica vessels, precise engineering and construction was essen- ships with Good Weave and Care & Fair compliant fac- hard to engage with the exteriors of buildings. ing way. I have worked with a palette that I feel is reminiscent wood products used today are harvested from unsus- of a MIG29 jet, which is used as a flight simulator; and a tial. The boats were manufactured out of carbon ‘prepreg’ tories and weavers. Smith says the research process of the tones found in the New Zealand landscape but also tainable old-growth forests, or from chemically pre- solar car for Sunswift, which took part in last year’s Global (a composite fibre) and Nomex honeycomb core, using an encouraged and fed into her fascination with tradi- Before you designed the New Zealand rooms you were contemporary. My hope is that the rooms will sit quietly while served softwoods. Both ultimately cause personal or Solar Challenge across Australia. Today, Core is working for ‘Out of Autoclave’ curing method suitable for advanced tional Indian weaving techniques. working in Belgium, at Vincent Van Duysen’s studio. servicing the main event of the pavilions. environmental harm. At Abodo we aim to change that. Google on the Makani M600 wind-energy generator, and composite materials (and often used in the aerospace indus- “When I moved to India, I didn’t go to start a busi- How did that come about? Our vision is for a world where wood products are beau- is undertaking tooling work for the marine and composites try). Manufacture was undertaken using latest-technology ness – I went to upskill and learn all there was to know A diversity of work is something I’m quite adamant about. I’d Landscape – often uninhabited, and raw – is one of the main tiful, durable, low toxicity and have a planned end of life.” industry. It has also been contracted to help build a railway machinery, including a 5-axis CNC milling machine called about rugs. The craftspeople there are practicing some been working with Fearon Hay [in Auckland, New Zealand], themes of your photography. Does the exterior world have overbridge, huge water-pipe junctions and a two-metre-tall ‘The Poseidon’: an 18m long, 6m wide, 3m tall machine that of the oldest weaving techniques in the world. I became however I wanted to find ways to vary and strengthen the aprofound effect on what you do? abodo.co.nz teddy bear for the movie industry. can slice through composites, wood, graphite and non-fer- engrossed with developing various weaves and trying contributions I was making to projects. At the end of 2014 New Zealand’s landscape is unique and deeply profound and Core has also moved into the architecture sphere. Its first rous metals with a degree of accuracy to 0.2mm. all sorts of blends of fibres. Once I found what I was I was on sabbatical in Europe when I was offered a job in I think New Zealander’s are very connected to the elements significant project was the roof structure for the Marsden On the Marsden Cross Interpretive Centre, Lake says happy with, I decided to have some full rugs made and Antwerp with Vincent Van Duysen. Vincent is an expert and their landscape, whether they acknowledge it or not. My Cross Interpretive Centre, designed by Cheshire Architects the project manager came to Core with a drawing, “just as sent back to New Zealand.” at re-interpreting traditional and classic tropes through a photos are just a visual record of things I see when I travel – a project that features in Future Islands, New Zealand’s the Americas Cup was winding down in 2014.” Nodi evolved from there. Today, Smith, as designer, modernist lens, and this was an approach that had shaped my but the landscape images from New Zealand are really just a exhibition at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. Core “He asked us if we could build the structure and transport draws on travel and landscape experiences for inspi- ideas about what constituted strong interior design. Belgium means to better understand my country which, I think, stems has an even closer understanding of Future Islands: it it. We happened to have a 40m-long AC72 wing sail leaving ration. “I usually start by getting the paint brushes was also appealing in another way: it had the ability to provide from my interest in New Zealand nationalist painters, such as worked closely with the exhibition’s creative team to mill that day, so were able to demonstrate our experience with out; that’s where the creative process begins,” she says. an experience of interior architecture and design in a more Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston and Rita Angus. I don’t mean and manufacture twenty, brilliant-white ‘floating’ islands that level of scale. For us, the exciting aspect of this project is Textures and final products are developed in India, established context and industry than New Zealand. The 12 for the images to be uninhabited but the remote parts of New that form the platform for the 55 projects portrayed in the utilising all of the digital manufacturing techniques that we predominantly from natural yarns: Indian jute, cotton months I spent with the Van Duysen team offered insights into Zealand – usually the most photogenic – are more often than exhibition. had honed over the previous four years to efficiently produce and New Zealand and Indian wool. Depending on size, how potent and considered the profession can be. The studio not empty. Maybe it’s got something to do with growing up in Core’s story begins back in 2001, in Ventura, California, something completely unique that was entirely outside the a rug can take anywhere from two to six weeks to make. approach was based around reinterpreting very classic, very the provinces, or having an interest in cartography, but place when it was the build team for Oracle Racing. In 2010, after marine industry. As there was a clear path from concept to “It’s all done completely by hand, and because of the Belgian forms and crafts through reductive aesthetic princi- names, landmarks, natural phenomena all have incredible the 33rd Americas Cup campaign, Core founders Tim Smyth structural design to fabrication to installation, we saw this hand making, each piece is slightly different and has pals, which made me question what New Zealand interiors histories which inevitably influences the way you think about and Mark Turner were able to establish a permanent com- project as a natural extension of our work.” these ‘perfect imperfections’.” could offer with a similar approach and, indeed, what in fact the context of both interior and exterior spaces when you mercial operation in an old print warehouse in Warkworth, constituted a New Zealand interior. come to design. New Zealand. corebuilderscomposites.com nodirugs.com 28 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 29

Inside the New Zealand Room

06 07 08 PLAYING WITH RENDERS FROM STRENGTH OF IDEAS COLOUR THE EARTH

Resene is a New Zealand-owned company that began in a Resident has been described as the “first editor of New Zealand products – the Geometric family of Hex, Cross and Tri Pendants garage 69 years ago. From humble beginnings it evolved design”, perhaps because the company, which is committed to – are designed by our in-house team, Resident Studio.” into a large company that offers generous support to New the design, manufacture and distribution of high quality light- A small but quickly growing company, Resident is finding a Zealand architecture. For 25 years the paint maker has ing and furniture for commercial and domestic environments, wide international fanbase for its designs, including celebrated been the sponsor of the New Zealand Architecture Awards, has a number of well-respected New Zealand designers in its British designer Tom Dixon, who last year invited the studio and it is also a supporter of New Zealand architecture stable. However, New Zealand citizenship is not a prerequisite to participate in a futuristic concept department store at the abroad, at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The company for Resident membership. “Ideas are more important,” says Old Selfridges Hotel on Oxford Street, London. also runs its own awards programme, the Resene Total Scott Bridgens, the company’s co-founder alongside designer “Tom just picked up the phone and asked us if we would Colour Awards, to encourage the creative use of colour Simon James. “Every product needs its own piece of magic.” like to be involved,” says Bridgens. “We had started a sales in the built environment. A case in point is Australian lighting designer Flynn Talbot, office in London, so got together and created ‘Multiplex’ at In 2015, the overall winner of the Resene Total Colour the latest addition to the Resident lineup. Talbot’s Mesh Space very short notice. The brief was for ‘a department store of the Awards was Myers Park Playspace, designed by Helen Kerr Pendant recently won one of New Zealand’s highest design future’, which 20 leading design, fashion, art and film com- and Haylea Muir of Isthmus. The Auckland playspace, honours, a Gold Pin at the 2015 Best Awards, and was featured panies collaborated on. It was a place for working, playing which also won the Resene Total Colour Landscape Award, by Wallpaper magazine in its latest ‘W House’. and entertaining, for inspiration and for business. It was very was described by the judges as “Alice in Wonderland meets “We approach designers whose work we admire,” says successful and a lot of fun.” Dr Seuss – a collection of colourful play pieces brought to Bridgens. “Nat Cheshire, for instance, a director of Cheshire Resident is a regular exhibitor at the Milan Furniture life through bold energising colour.” Architects, a practice that does special projects at incredibly Fair, London Design Festival and New York Design Week. Its At the playspace, children exercise mind and body varied scales, from urban design right down to bespoke door products are sold in 15 countries, including China, at Design 05 under an abstract canopy of tall, slender, disc-shaped flow- Natural renders are often thought of as a traditional handles. Jamie McLellan splits his time between New York Warehouse; in the USA, through Design Within Reach, Matter ers that dapple the ground with intricate shadows. There is building material, but Rockcote, a New Zealand-owned and New Zealand, designing not just furniture but windsurfing in New York, A+R East in Los Angeles, as well as at other retail- a network of sprawling kamo kamo vines (a pumpkin-like company that manufactures earthen renders from clay equipment, shoes, kayaks and bicycles. Simon James has pro- ers; and throughout Britain and Europe. UNDER plant) for swinging and clambering on; large perforated and lime, has rethought the application for contempo- duced some great pieces, including the Tangerine family, Felix

leaves for climbing; and vibrant super-scaled garden birds rary use. Chair and Pick Up Sticks Chair. Some of our most successful resident.co.nz Light Funnel and Fibre Sticks Pick Up Resident A CLOUD and insects with which to engage physically and musically. Natural renders impart texture, honesty and authen- The design is also rooted in the practical. A playable ticity to a space says Mike Olds, general manager of ‘folded’ timber deck provides parents with a platform for Resene Construction Systems. They also contain no Aotearoa New Zealand is a long and narrow island observation and conversation. It is also a reference to the cement and are free of dangerous chemicals. Other nation with skirts of coastline hemmed by vast bodies idea of providing burgeoning numbers of city dwellers with environmental benefits include low embodied energy of water. The weather changes fast and often – especially a common ‘backyard’ with some of the amenity tradition- – energy necessary for the entire product life-cycle – in Wellington, where prevailing westerlies called the ally found in the city’s lush suburbs. To encourage social and full recyclability, which means the products can ‘roaring forties’ whip through the Cook Strait to hit the play between children, there are low, concrete stepping be returned to the earth after use. Naturally porous, city on the nose. walls riddled with colourful cut-outs and playable brick earthen renders also allow a building to breathe, regu- For Wellingtonians Nick and Nevada Leckie, living edges surrounding a raised ‘garden plot’. There are also lating humidity and playing an active role in improving at the edge of the city’s waterfront and getting around traditional play items: swings and slides, a giant nest-bas- internal air quality, thus enhancing the health of living solely on foot, this weather was a necessary driver for ket swing and other more physically challenging pieces of and working environments. design. Frustrated with a lack of options for protective equipment to entertain and challenge regular users from The product is also long lasting. “By combining mod- urban rainwear, the duo channelled their frustrations a nearby school. Through the site, a sinuous path provides ern technology with ancient methods we produce natu- into the design studio. Inspired by ex-New Zealand soc- a course for scooters and bikes. ral, durable renders,” Olds says. The natural colour of an cer player Tim Brown, who successfully used Kickstarter Even on the dullest day, these oversized characters flit- earthen render is an earthy loam but they can be tinted to take his merino wool footwear concept All Birds to ting in the park in bright paint colours bring a sense of joy easily with oxides, coloured sands, quartz, marble chips, the world, Nick and Nevada harnessed crowd power for and playfulness, irresistible to children and their parents. dry straw, crushed glass and other decorative elements. their Okewa (large grey raincloud in Māori) rainwear initiative. When their Kickstarter closed in late 2014 resene.co.nz reseneconstruction.co.nz they had 200 per cent funding and pre-orders from 23 countries. Windy, wet, Wellington was about to become the best raincoat testing ground imaginable. Okewa’s innovation, says Nick Leckie, is in the fusion of adventure-wear protection and urban styling. Each coat is cut from very lightweight, technical two-layer Japanese fabric, and is made in New Zealand by a fam-

ily-run manufacturer. Okewa is deepening its work in Simon Wilson. Photo by Auckland. Ponsonby, Lonely, Pendant and Parison Scholar Table Resident design and textile development, aiming to accentuate the use of high-quality waterproof textiles with merino wool, for warmer northern hemisphere winter coats, and 09 investigating opportunities for textile-grade harakeke around the design, construction, maintenance and refur- “Each and every project we are involved with is fully (New Zealand flax) fibre for rainwear use. bishment the world’s most advanced yachts – ‘superyachts’. customised in every way,” says Robinson. “The process by At a broader level, Nevada Leckie says Okewa is One such company, Robinson Interiors, has also contrib- which we design and manufacture our interiors enables driven by a desire to explore beyond the edges of the BUILDING THE BEST uted its expertise in design and fabrication to the construction owners to continually push design boundaries both with typical New Zealand story. “Eight-six per cent of New of custom-made furniture for New Zealand’s ancillary rooms materials and style. The complete interior is 3D-modelled Zealanders live in urban areas. It’s one of the most at the Palazzo Bollani. Robinson Interiors is a New Zealand using the latest CAD software, allowing an owner to easily urbanised countries in the world, however the prevail- Auckland, positioned on a narrow isthmus between two firm that works around the world, undertaking interior and review and make changes before construction commences. ing narrative tends to suggest otherwise. A more urban remarkable harbours, is often referred to as ‘The City of refurbishment projects for luxury yacht owners as well as spe- This enables changes to be made easily without the cost chapter of our story is in draft. Our position in the South Sails’, thanks to the large number of yachts that ply and cial projects, such as store fit outs for fashion retailer, Lonely. associated with changing any parts of an interior that may Pacific might inspire dreams of a tropical paradise in the plot courses across its sparkling blue waters. As might be Stuart Robinson, managing director of the company, and a already be constructed.” minds of northern Europeans battling a heavy winter. expected of a city with a long fascination with all things third generation, “time served” furniture maker is passionate Robinson Interiors has two Auckland offices with manu- The reality awaiting travellers on Wellington Airport’s nautical, Auckland is also home to a number of companies about creating high quality interiors. Since the company’s facturing facilities. More information and a gallery of projects tarmac often comes as a surprise.” at the forefront of the maritime industries. Some are fueled formation, Robinson says the it has upheld the values estab- can be viewed on the company’s website. by New Zealand’s participation (and sometimes success) in lished through three generations of furniture craftsmanship, okewarainwear.com Michael Craig. Photo by the Americas Cup. Others cater to service an industry built “tradition, quality workmanship, value, and service.” robinsoninteriors.co 30 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 31

Inside the New Zealand Room Six of the best It’s a tough question to put to an architect: what’s your favourite building? Any architect could name dozens of candidates. So we 10 narrowed the scope of enquiry: What’s your favourite Aotearoa New Zealand building? HAUTE WOOL Six New Zealand architects respond: CELEBRATING INNOVATION

Few materials say ‘New Zealand’ like wool. But can one of the most traditional materials be re-imagined as a break-out fibre in the built environment? At a recent workshop in New Zealand, 14 leading international architects explored the boundaries of wool – and pushed the material to the edge of innovation. Photo by Patrick Reynolds. Patrick Photo by

Wool has been described as being, “As modern a “lamp that flies along the ceiling and a new The Auckland Art Gallery extension as moon flight, and as ancient as the hills.” And façade that soars around a building”. Louis Shannon Joe by FJMT / Archimedia is a it’s true. Sheep were first domesticated 10,000 Becker, from Henning Larsen Architects in (Warren and Mahoney) contemporary expression of how years ago, their fleece used for clothing and Denmark, inspired from visiting New Zealand New Zealand’s natural landscape shelter. Yet today, wool is a fibre of choice for farms and experiencing first-hand the smell Auckland Art Gallery has had to confront the progress astronauts because of the comfort it affords and oily feel of freshly shorn wool, was inter- Toi o Tāmaki extension (2011) of the modern urban world. in the confines of a spacecraft. Its protective ested in how “wool could be integrated in by FJMT and Archmedia The building carefully carves a properties also see it used by mountaineers, buildings as a product you can see and touch”. cultural language of stone, glass polar scientists and sailors who navigate the His concept, a flexible soft wall, illustrates his and our country’s much-loved oceans of the world. interest “in the double function of the wool as timber, playfully integrating these Through high-tech reinvention, wool has insulation and sound-controlling material, but materials into a beautiful object transcended traditional uses. However, its also as physical room dividers.” set within a park. Duncan Winder. Photo by application in the built environment is yet to Giorgio Borruso, from California, was the work of Tohunga Whakairo be discovered. In 2010, the IWTO Architects inspired by the behaviour of sheep in the Rau Hoskins Lyonel Grant and his team of and modern new ecclesiastical typology, make Project challenged 14 international architects field, or ‘flock dynamics’. “When on an open (Design Tribe) carvers and weavers. it an outstanding building. to visit New Zealand, immerse themselves in pasture, sheep scatter across the entire area, Richard Naish It’s a building which embodies (RTA Studio) An enriching visitor experience is produced by New Zealand’s rural landscape and look for but in reaction to an external threat, such as Te Ngākau Māhaki (2009) artistic excellence with deep Māori the architect’s control of light, space and mass in ‘blue sky’ opportunities with wool. They vis- rapidly changing weather conditions, they by Dr Lyonel Grant cultural symbolism with the carved, a refined and sophisticated manner – and all this ited the places where it is grown, investigated quickly and efficiently congregate into a single Futuna Chapel (1961) by John Scott woven, laser cut and painted works in a very small building crafted and constructed by its lesser known properties and then partici- unit.” Taking a cue from this, Borruso created a acting as a chronology of mana monks with no power tools other than an electric pated in a workshop to conceive new archi- seating system composed of a number of single My favourite Aotearoa building is whenua and urban Māori history drill. The chapel represents a pioneering tradition tectural applications. In their workshop, the elements, i.e. sheep, with highly customisable Te Ngākau Mahaki, the wharenui in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland. John Scott’s Futuna Chapel in Wellington is my of modern New Zealand architecture that reminds architects developed concepts for a hotel that exterior layers. They can be used individually or meeting house at Te Noho It’s a must-visit experience for current favourite. (I have many more buildings to us of the very few distillates that are actually would incorporate wool as the key interior, or, when combined with other elements, take Kotahitanga / Unitec Marae in New Zealand architects, although visit.) The chapel’s references to Māori, Pacific and required to make a truly outstanding building, and in some cases exterior, textile. on a new shape and use. Auckland. It was opened in 2009 to earn the privilege you need to European traditions, and the creation of a unique if handled masterfully. The architects were encouraged to realise Gerhard Pfeiler’s woollen stairs (see image) and is the culmination of six years be part of a group that is formally the unique properties of the fibre: its natural resulted from his search for an independent full time carving and weaving and welcomed onto the marae. place as an insulator, fire retardant and sound application of wool. By incorporating felt absorber; its ability to lock-in and neutralise stings, which are smooth and soft, but also VOCs (eg formaldehyde); its humidity regu- strong, and 100 per cent wool ultra-high-den- lation and thermodynamic qualities, as well sity felt board, he created a stair system that Christina van Bohemen as its ‘green’ properties – wool is renewable, is light, fire resistant and able to “profit from (Sills van Bohemen Architects) natural, sustainable and biodegradable. all the excellent material properties of wool”, A woollen luminaire, a furniture system that is, sound and odour absorption, regulation Ironbank (2009) by RTA Studio using high-density wool and statically loadable of humidity, sustainability and recyclability. stairs made from wool were just some of the In March 2016, Campaign for Wool New inventive solutions envisioned by the workshop. Zealand repeated the workshop format Spanish architect Manual Bailo Esteve’s with some of New Zealand’s up-and-coming To pick a best or most favourite building is too proposed ‘Aladdin’s Magic Carpet’, a “ceiling architectural, product and interior design- hard but Ironbank in Auckland, designed by RTA made of stars”, as the architect likened it, and ers. Stephen McDougall, CFW Wool in Studio, is a favourite contemporary building Architecture Ambassador and Director of because it demonstrates the transformative power Studio Pacific Architecture, says “Reimagining Jasper van der Lingen of good architecture in the city. I like the way wool was the challenge for Weekend in a (Sheppard & Rout Architects) the north elevation bends gently with the street, Woolshed, a follow on from the International and the overtly modern façade and materials 14, and we are thrilled with the concepts cre- The Stone Chamber (1865), part of the Canterbury Provincial Council sit well with its nineteenth century neighbours ated by the New Zealand Nine. Buildings, by Benjamin Mountfort – not self-effacing or deferential, but strong and “Their ideas pushed the edge of thinking complementary. and captured multiple architectural qualities The south elevation at street level cleverly of this natural and sustainable fibre. They Like most architects I have many revival in the southern hemisphere. mimics the gritty and quirky character of the range from ‘art forms’ – stunning in their sim- sense of the word) – would, during favourite buildings. Probably the I found it a place full of beautiful brothels, coffee shops, backpacker hotels and plicity yet smart in their solutions to everyday Gary Lawson school holidays, take me to see one that keeps coming back to my crafted details and ornament which business startups that currently populate Cross life – to explorations into wider health and (Stevens Lawson Architects) the building under construction. mind is the Provincial Chambers in is integrated into the structure; the Street. Up high, the building boldly marks the social housing solutions. All are exciting for When it opened, I remember being Christchurch, and particularly the proportions and form of the space ridgeline connecting the city, north and south. the wool industry and the built environment.” Timaru District Library (1980) by captivated by its curved and ribbed Stone Chamber, by the architect enhanced the architecture rather Our office has been in Ironbank for five years in Wool in Architecture and Interior Design, Warren and Mahoney Architects concrete forms, sunken reading Benjamin Mountfort from around than masking it. The Provincial two different “boxes”. We enjoy the light and the a book compiling the concepts of the partic- areas, interesting sky-lit roof 1865. Sadly, the Stone Chamber, Chambers was an elaborate and views out – the connection with the city beyond. ipants in the 2014 IWTO Architects Project and roof structure, and carefully especially, was very badly damaged exuberant building, but somehow There’s a sense of community among the many is available to view in the Reading Room at My choice is the Timaru District placed windows. All-in-all, it was in the 2011 earthquake, but there calm and balanced at the same small businesses in the building, as well as within Palazzo Bollani, New Zealand’s venue at the Library by Warren and Mahoney. an engaging, interesting and is talk of restoring it. The Provincial time. It was a vision of great the surrounding diverse K’ Rd neighbourhood. 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. As a young kid growing up in comfortable place to go with mum Chamber’s magnificent interior optimism and hope for a bright I enjoy the confidence of the design and the detail Wool reinvented – as a staircase. Austrian architect Gerhard Pfeiler’s design utilises rigid felt boards as steps, Timaru, my grandfather – who after school, as we regularly did was considered one of the finest future, right at the starting point of its parts, and admire the commitment by its

suspended from felt stings that also form a balustrade. campaignforwool.co.nz was a master builder (in the true back then. examples of high Victorian Gothic of New Zealand’s colonial history. Reynolds. Patrick Photo by owner to commission good architecture for the city. 32 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design. 33

Words by Craig Martin carried and held and nailed. I enjoyed working with my father; we are good problem solvers together. After six weeks of living in a tent with my parents I had had enough. The roof was on, building paper A perfect getaway In summer the neighbour’s pigs drove my parents wrapped the framing and the windows were about crazy and they dreamed of an escape from the flies to go in. I flew out through Christchurch the day the A holiday house in the bush on the West Coast of the South Island is still and the stink. They had fallen in love with the West Games started and back to my friends in Hawkes Bay. treasured by family of the clients who commissioned its design forty years Coast on a South Island tour a few years before and My older brothers helped get the house water tight and acquired a madly cheap ten acres of cut-over bush the interior was completed over the next year or so. ago from the celebrated and singular New Zealand architect John Scott. south of Hokitika. They commissioned architect John We notice our mistakes more than our successes in Scott, who had designed their home and pottery/ things we make. Some regrets take years to get over, workshop in Hawkes Bay, to design a small cottage like the lack of an electric plane to even up the house’s Craig Martin and daughter they could build themselves as a getaway. floor joists before the floor was laid. But the quality Estelle in the kitchen and dining room of the ‘bush My mother Estelle had boundless ideas and of the build is much better than amateur and the bach’. The house was my father Bruce’s usual role was to moderate and building has warmed and softened over time. There designed by architect John Scott for Craig’s parents. then implement them. They were a good team and are no architraves or scotias; the plywood lining fit- Photo by Paul McCredie. achieved remarkable things through this combina- ting almost up to the window edge or the end-rafters tion. The Hokitika house is one of them. with a small gap of timber showing. This is a regular I had been on the first South Island trip, my last hol- John Scott detail and gives the interior a simple but iday with my parents, when I was fourteen or fifteen. elegant finish. It also requires a degree of care and We visited some wonderful places: Punakiaki, Okarito, craftsmanship by the person cutting and fitting the Gillespies Beach, the glaciers further south. When I ply because you have nothing to cover over the gaps. returned a year or so later to prepare a building site John Scott’s detailing and joinery add quality to in the newly acquired section I thought they were the bach. By today’s standards John was extravagant mad. The large trees had been milled forty-odd years with native timber and much of the joinery is rimu earlier and the bush was slowly regenerating, but it and generously proportioned. Downstairs the floor is was also riddled with gorse, as were the paddocks for brick tiles with electric powered underfloor heating miles around. Anywhere you cleared or scratched the and upstairs matai tongue ’n’ groove. surface new gorse would sprout. To my adolescent Upstairs is a simple rectangular space with a living eye it looked like a mess and hard, thankless work. area at one end and a bedroom at the other with a John Scott designed a simple, two-story cottage, kitchen bench in the middle. Over the bench are open with extra detailing for inexperienced builders. Bruce shelves and a glimpse of the stairs and the tall window made a balsa wood model of the studs, joists, beams below. The roof is gabled with exposed rafters and the and rafters to get an idea of how it all fitted together. ceiling is matai sarking. I remember nailing it on six He also bought an old Bedford truck to cart our gear metres above the ground using a chisel banged in the from Ngatarawa, near Hastings in the North Island, rafter to lever it tight. to the section by Mirror Creek near Lake Mahinapua The stairwell is behind the bench and the bath- in the South. We drove in convoy in the family car and room is on the landing halfway between the floors. the truck, with a new coil required for the Bedford Dividing the living area and the bedroom is a wall in Levin. The further south we drove the less traffic that extends from the landing to the roof. This wall is there was and the friendlier the waves from the locals. perfectly proportioned and is the work of an architect Great architects should design small buildings paying attention. because there they can show best why architecture In my teens I built models of John Scott houses: matters, why design matters, why ideas matter. The my parents’ house in Hawkes Bay, this house, the bush house is shaped like many barns or farm sheds Brown house in Napier. I found it difficult to imagine up and down the West Coast with a pitched roof the buildings in three dimensions until I made the and no real eaves and added windows, but it is full model. I found it remarkable that Scott was able to of great design, of beautiful spaces, of textures and imagine the spaces he was designing, the volume, contrasts, light and colour – full of the essence of the proportions. This is what makes an architect, good architecture. of course, and it is what John Scott gets right in his Most of the materials were sourced locally, the buildings: space, proportion and size. timber from a small mill at Ruatapu a few kilome- The bush house is compact and clever. The stairs tres around the road. The cladding is corrugated at the lower level provide volume to the bedroom iron which remained shiny and unpainted for almost above, and the tall window at the bottom of the stairs decade. The windows, stairs and kitchen joinery were is a delight, a favourite. The windows out to the bush made by a joiner in Hokitika. are almost square and generous. At tree height the I was seventeen and between school and teachers’ birds come and visit, bellbirds and tui and a kereru college. The 1974 Commonwealth Games were about that does acrobatics to strip the last of the kowhai to start in Christchurch. The weather on the West flowers before starting on the new leaves. Coast was exceptional that summer with rain only John Scott suggested the colours of beech leaves in once or twice in six weeks. We lived in a tent and had a a stream for the cottage and so the bedroom curtains long-drop in the bush and an outdoor shower. Power are red and primary yellow in the lounge. Yellow, was connected to a builder’s pole on the driveway but orange and green trim is also used on the outside we had limited power tools: a Skilsaw with a cross-cut sills and flashings. There are other touches of colour attachment, a drill and an electric jug. with hand-decorated tiles by Charles Holmes in the We laid out the foundations before Christmas, bathroom and an orange vinyl sink bench downstairs. finding the levels with an ancient dumpy level and The house is a perfect getaway: it has everything poured the concrete slab on Christmas Eve. you need for a holiday with added pleasure from the A surprising number of people called by for a look aesthetics. It is a place to read and write, to eat and and to lend a hand. Fellow potter Peter Stichbury came drink, to listen to the rain or the distant sea polishing while we were nailing in dwangs and re-named them the rocks on the beach at Ross. After forty years the noggins. More qualified friends helped sort the plumb- architecture is still fresh, the ideas and solutions still ing and wiring. School friends of mine came past in a delightful; the wood has mellowed and the house hippie van and Estelle put a pottery-for-sale sign out settled in the bush. on the road and sold the odd pot to passing motorists. Bruce did most of the building with support from This essay was one of the entries into the 2015 Estelle and me, and later my brothers. Estelle also Warren Trust Awards for Architectural Writing, an cooked, painted and provided safety advice while annual competition organised by the New Zealand we climbed ladders or pushed up walls. I fetched and Institute of Architects. 34 KOHA / An offering of New Zealand Architecture and Design.

After decades when the publication of two New Zealand architecture Book end. books in the same year seemed miraculous, piles of new works now test the tolerance of coffee tables and designer shelving. Many of the books are about houses and some are monographs. But there are other books, too, the sort of smaller publications – collections of essays or reflections – which every self-respecting profession should generate. Here’s a sample of the recent crop of books about New Zealand Every book has an author. architecture (many of them are on display in Venice, at the Reading Every film has a director. Room in Palazzo Bollani – the Future Islands exhibition venue): Every painting has an artist. Every dance has a choreographer. Every play has a playwright. Every symphony has a composer. Every building has an architect. Every exhibition has a curator. Every poem has a poet. Every sculpture has a sculptor.

01 Modern: New Zealand Homes from the 03 Shigeru Ban: Cardboard Cathedral 05 Beyond the State: New Zealand State 07 Just to show that architects can laugh 08 Marae – Te Tatau Pounamu: A Journey 1940s to the 1970s by Jeremy Hansen by Andrew Barrie (Auckland University Houses from Modest to Modern by at themselves: Did You Mean to Do Around New Zealand by Muru Walters, (Random House, 2013) looks at the Press, 2014) tells the story of Ban’s Bill McKay and Andrea Stevens (Penguin, That? Malcolm Walker Architectural Robin Walters and Sam Walters (Random mid-century houses designed by New temporary structure designed for 2014) traces the gentrification of the Cartoons, John Walsh [Ed.], (New House, 2014) records a three-year Zealand’s Regional Modernists. post-earthquake Christchurch. well-built suburban rental houses built Zealand Architectural Publications journey around the country’s Māori Pai mutunga te mahi hoahoa whare by the government half a century ago. Trust, 2012), is a sample of 25 years of meeting houses. 02 Portrait of a House by Simon Devitt 04 Big House, Small House by John Walsh funny drawings by New Zealand’s only (Balasoglou Books, 2012) is a pictorial and Patrick Reynolds (Random House, 06 10 Stories: Writing about Architecture, architectural cartoonist. 09 Architecture in an Expanded Field, Architektur ist wichtig chronicle of ‘Ath’s house’, the singular 2012) presents 60 contemporary John Walsh [Ed.], (New Zealand Institute Sarah Treadwell and Lucy Treep [Eds] dwelling designed by and constantly residential projects by New Zealand of Architects, 2015) is a collection (Architecture + Women · NZ and Aalto added to by the late, great Ian Athfield. architects. of essays from the inaugural Warren Books, 2015) comprises papers from a Trust Awards for Architectural Writing conference on women in architecture. けんちく は じゅうよう competition (see page 32 for one of the essays). Arquitectura es importante 建筑学很重要 L’architettura conta L’architecture, c’est important

 . . . Architecture matters

10 4 Architects: William Allington; 12 Architectus: Between Order and 14 Athfield Architects by Julia Gatley 16 Jasmax, Stephen Stratford [Ed.], 18 Pete Bossley Architects, Stephen James Beard; William Toomath; Derek Opportunity by Haig Beck and Jackie (Auckland University Press, 2012) is a (New Zealand Architectural Publications Stratford [Ed.], (NZ Architectural Wilson, Stephen Stratford [Ed.], (New Cooper (ORO Editions, 2009) updates history of the practice that Ath built. Trust, 2007), is a history of the practice Publications Trust, 2005), introduces Zealand Architectural Publications Trust, the story of a multi-award-winning that grew into the country’s biggest the lively career of a free-spirited 2010), covers the Wellington’s eminent Australasian practice. New Territory: Warren and Mahoney – architectural firm. Auckland architect. Modernists. 15 50 Years of New Zealand Architecture 13 Coast, Country, Neighbourhood, City, (Balasoglou Books, 2005) celebrates 17 Stuart Gardyne: NZIA Gold Medal 2015, 11 RTA Studio, Andrea Hotere [Ed.], (RTA Isthmus, Michael Barrett [Ed.], (Six Point the golden jubilee of the successful John Walsh and Michael Barrett [Eds], Studio 2014), marks the 15th anniversary Press, 2015), records the progress of a firm established by Sir Miles Warren (New Zealand Institute of Architects, of an ambitious Auckland practice. leading multi-disciplinary practice. and Maurice Mahoney. 2015), profiles the latest winner of the NZIA’s Gold Medal award. With thanks to / avec grâce à RAIC/IRAC: Architecture Canada Architecture à RAIC/IRAC: grâce to / avec thanks With The façade of Spark Central in Wellington, New Zealand, designed by architecture+. In 2015, architecture+ director Stuart Gardyne received the NZIA Gold Medal, the highest individual honour in New Zealand architecture. Photo by Paul McCredie.