NZ Post has been busy over the last year, sending out messages of PostCodes to the whole of New Zealand. We had, until recently, a system of Post Codes that were laughable in their pathetic simplicity. My NZ Post Code in 2000 was 6001, which I shared with approximately 100,000 other people. I don’t think that I ever heard of anyone living in 6002, although it is certainly possible. In 2008 however, NZ Post made the heroic move towards the future, announcing that we would all be getting individual Post Codes – which we would have to commit really seriously…
read the full entryFor a brief moment in time it seemed as though time had stood still, and that El Terry had given up finishing it, but then it was restarted with new contractors who actually seemed keen to complete the project. It’s one of the more complex developments Wellington has seen for a number of years: taking a barren empty site and layering on it a monster carpark for initial income generating potential, and then an apartment building which suffered the indignity and outright crassness of having another apartment building built slap-bang in front of it, and now the hotel part of…
read the full entryThere seems no doubt that today will go down in history as an important date, and it seems churlish to ignore it and debate the whys and wherefores of buildings in Wellington, when the real focus for much of the world has been on the buildings and public spaces in Washington, half a world away.
The date for us is clear enough: its the 21st of January, although America, being so far behind the time, will no doubt try to tell us that it was 01 20 09. Washington has revealed itself as not being just a vast ghetto…
read the full entryWatching an episode of Grand Designs recently, while on holiday, made me thankful that we don’t have such a high and idiotic level of bureaucracy as they do in England: but then again, nor do we have an architectural presenter with the charisma and sardonic tongue of Kevin McCloud.
In this programme, an architect called Francis Shaw was attempting to restore a castle in Skipton, in Yorkshire. His object of decrepid fascination was known as Peel Castle – more of a large country house really, but it did have a castellated top (or did, once it was “restored”).
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read the full entryWhile I’ve been quite impressed by the new trolley buses in Wellington,
one gleaming in its paua-shell colour-scheme as it slides silently through the city, I still have a hankering for a double-decker, which are fairly common throughout England, and of which we seem to have one roaming solo in the streets of Wellington. It is of course a RouteMaster, the most famous of all the London Transport double-deckers, and well-deserved of its iconic status (iconic: that word again, but yes, on this occasion truly deserving).
Other double-deckers came before and after: none were as well-designed or as…
read the full entryIn all probability, this year is going to be a bit of a quieter year than previous years, especially on the Design and Construction front. Auckland has been in a constructional doldrum for the last 18 months or so, while Wellington has been curiously bouyant, but realistically, this is not a state that is going to continue. Although there are no real reasons for our economy to crash screaming to the ground in the same way that America’s has, we’ll be catching their cold no doubt, and giving it a darn good sneeze in sympathy.
I get amused by media…
read the full entryWe’re back from the fishing trip, and will be resuming normal transmissions shortly. But to be honest, the weather is too nice to be sitting inside by a computer as I suspect you know, and so we’ve just taken off to the beach.
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