Hemlines up? Super-tall towers? Myths discussed

Pride commeth before a fall, as the old saying goes, but there’s normally something else that happens before the stock-market crashes, as we’re seeing at present. It seems that while the market gets busier and busier, more and more bullish, and developers develop balls of steel, that tall buildings are the things that truly commeth before a fall; that there is a direct link between ego and egg-on-face-oh. Since the age of the skyscraper, this has always been the way: with the Chrysler Building and the Empire State building culminating at the same time as the big New York stockmarket crash of 1929, the boom of the 80s with a wave of tall pomo buildings throughout Manhatten and around the world ending in the Crash of 1987, and the recent and ridiculous line-ups of tall tales of tall towers in the Middle East and the Far East, culminating in the present calamitous crash in stockmarkets around the world in 2008. 

It’s all so predictable, and in theory so avoidable: if the market doesn’t get so swept up in itself, so carried away with the power

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Athfield’s fractured facade

Despite the doom and gloom talk of global financial melt-down, the proposed redevelopment of our tightly packed city continues on, showing no fear (as yet), with a bullish report in the DomPost today. The latest proposal is for AMP’s redevelopment of the Gen-i building, sited on Customhouse Quay with stunning views out over the harbour.

Nestling into the rear of the Maritime Tower site, and indeed wrapping around the 3 remaining quarters of the block it sits on, this tower proposal will be one of the more prominent and important developments in the City: we need major redevelopments like this so that the construction industry doesn’t hit the skids.  The site has been asking for redevelopment for some time now: the current  tower rises high on Featherston St but has negligible height on the eastward podium, and the tower is stitched in to the base via a form of giant concrete brise-soleil cross stitch.

The current tower (anyone know who designed it?) features a rooftop finished with a curiously crinkly, crenalated construction hiding the lift motor rooms, one of my favourites in the city,

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Athfield rolling on

If you’re an architect or architectural groupie in Wellington, waking up this morning with a hangover, then you must have been at Athfield’s party last night. By all accounts, it was a “ripper of a night” and a great time was had, drunk and eaten by all. The ears and eyes of the fish reported back that the Embassy Theatre was packed, with faux movie trailer posters of the practice in various guises - as the assorted members of Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, as Kong, The Athfather, and many more. Good to hear those photoshop skills are coming in useful for more than just client renders! Just about every significant architect in town went along to celebrate 40 years of Athfield Architects, as well as their clients and consultants, and the evening started with a film on the celebrated and well-lubricated master architect and his oeuvre of work.

The film “Ian Athfield, Architect of Dreams” will be shown at a later stage on late night TVNZ, no doubt at a time guaranteed to be unhelpful to all. Still, it’s nice to see another film being made on a New Zealand Architect, and focusing mostly on Athfield’s extensive production

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Coffee you Feel !

Yes, that’s right - Havana Coffee, home to some of the best roasted beans and some of the choicest cuts of real estate too. The guys at Havana seem to have a handle on all their senses: a feel for what makes a great bar, a good eye for catchy graphics, a fine nose for roasting, and an ear out for some choice sites. Here’s three that we know of. 

First up is the original, the former roasting shop in Wigan St, composed of two little dwellings that are now home to a good bar. While the street used to be full of a whole line of these little love shacks, it’s just a continuation of the low rent architecture that used to fill Haining St as well in its previous incantation as a China Town opium den. Long may these two shacks continue to thrive, and the bars within them. They’ve survived a building by the School of Design next door, and a planking by the Wellingtonian - they can survive a lot longer I’m sure.

If you were to wander from Wigan, along Haining, you’ll get to Tory St and Francis Place,

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Whats happening on Holland?

Down here on Holland St, construction is definitely nothing new. Of late we’ve seen the Century City development starting to shape up, as well as the smaller additions of the oh-so-contemporary product spec office and the always-vibrant fuel expresso HQ. I had assumed that the construction site present on the first floor of the ‘zebra hostel’ was just simple renovation or the like; but the additon of an interesting catipillar-like lighting trail has picqued both my curiosity and expectations.   Anyone in the know have some more information for us? Maximums? Am I just hopelessly out of the loop?    

Design for the sun

Following on from the previous post, where we had observed how good Wellington can get on a nice day (not so good today, unfortunately), there were a few photos left over that we just had to use. There seems to be a few simple principles at work here for successful public space design in general, but throughout the waterfront especially.

Always face your seating to the sea and to the sun… (Jan Gehl noted that humans like to sit with their backs to something solid, but it seems in Wellington we trust each other just fine, and like to sit with our backs to the sun). 

Allow a variety of seating positions and protection away from the wind, and into the sun….. this place is perplexingly popular, not just with prone pedestrians but also with tiny skateboarders, too shy to battle with the big boys at the proper skatepark down the road.

Weekends plus sunshine = parents plus perambulators. A good children’s playground never goes amiss it seems.

Have somewhere where you

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Wellington on a Good Day…

They say it, and you can’t. Here’s proof.

Waitangi Park, multiple award winning and hugely popular outdoor space, for all Wellingtonians. What was all the fuss about then, eh? We love it. 

The new waterfront promenade outside the old Herd St Post Office. Most ridiculously priced fish and chips in town, but hey, great spot for people watching.

Shed 5 dining by the waters edge, nary a breath of wind in sight. Well, just a little puff then. One of the world’s most enjoyable waterfronts? 

The new Kumutoto bridge. Surprisingly slender. And late afternoon: the sun pours in here. They’re absolutely right you know - you really can’t beat Wellington on a good day.

Anyone fluent in Squiggle?

The Eye of the Fish can see many stories, read many texts, and understand many things: but one language that fish don’t speak is Wildstyle.

Graffiti - writing or drawings scribbled, scratched or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place.

While we hope to write more on the burgeoning graffiti art scene in Wellington (which can be argued as a good thing), and debate more on the subject of tagging (which seems to be more perceived as a bad thing), right now it is, to me, more of a curious thing.

Curious because, some 30 years after it was popular in Europe and America, it now seems to be popular here. Curious because, the Civic Trust have just given a blogger of a small back alley an award for public art.

Curious because, we have an elaborate history of living in a land with a tradition of figure marking, carving, painting: and yet we still copy overseas tired and passe formats in the style of our graffiti. Curious because, I can not figure out what on earth each

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