Thanks to a very helpful chap at the Council (thanks Richard!), we’ve got some more images to show and tell regarding works to the Council Housing Upgrade Project. Post updated with rear views, for JP, see end of post.
There’s about $200 million to spend, but its sensibly being spread out over a decade or two, so not all the jobs are coming on stream now. While the DomPost has published a small photo and article about one of the projects, there are plenty more projects proceeding along at pace as well. The biggest of these projects, and the one that…
We’ll post some more pictures of the Wellington social housing shortly, but first of all: some news from out of town. Quite a long way out of town in fact (London, actually) but still relevant – especially to the subject of social housing.
New(ish) Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is a famously Conservative chap with a more than slightly silly appearance and demeanour, possibly not thought to be sympathetic to the many poor and down-trodden in his city. His predecessor, Ken Livingston, was notoriously red and green, in a political sense: but it’s true blue Boris who is proving to…
read the full entryIt’s nice to be able to talk about good things happening in the Wellington architectural market, and the recent announcement in the DomPost about the new replacements for the WCC Regent Park flats is, to me, really good news. Despite not mentioning who the architect is, they did at least provide a picture to entice us – and outwardly at least, this looks like any other developer housing:
We discussed affordable housing a short while ago, and my suggestion that some affordable housing be incorporated into a wide range of developments, including down at the waterfront, got a few really sharp…
read the full entryA change of tack for a while: especially with this nasty weather around that we’ve been having.
But one in which I can find little historical information on. For a while back there in the 70s and the 80s, it seemed that the way ahead for Wellington was in only one direction: Underground. Furious digging below the streets at the major corner of Willis and Lambton gave us what is now still (just) known as the BNZ Centre, although with the BNZ offices gone from up above, and the underground level being populated with food stalls, I’m picking a major re-branding…
read the full entryWe’d hoped to be first to bring you details of the competition on the Outer-T, but the Architectural Centre bet us to it.
Ideas welcome – closes 24 August. Oddly enough, there’s not a thing on the websites of either Wellington Waterfront or the City Council yet. No doubt they’ll catch up sometime. In the mean time, there are more details here.
While I mightn’t understand Auckland’s need for speed to build a party zone for rugby boys; rue the day that some idiot coined the phrase Super-City; and may make a mockery of the glacial speed of traffic up there from time to time: they do have one thing coming on stream in AKL that will leave Welltown for dead. Yes, at long last the memorial to Sir Peter Blake is nearing completion – from the outside at least – and the building is looking gorgeous. The “Blue Water Black Magic – Tribute to Sir Peter Blake” experience is due to…
read the full entryRubbish on TV? “Nothing new there!” And what’s that all got to do with Architecture and Design in Wellington? I hear you whisper from the back row of the cheap seats.
Well, there’s an advert on TV that has sure got the local (and national) architects riled. Amongst others, to be sure: but this one takes a cake. NZ house building company GJ Gardner has been prominently featuring a TV ad where the provocative line “What do you do if your architect keeps blowing your budget?” is answered by an effete little man saying “Get another one – or tear your hair out!” –…
read the full entryNews of this has just come to light here at the Fish headquarters: the Council is supporting the ‘Great Harbour Way‘ cycle path along the edge of the big pond out there, “proposed to run almost 70 km from Pencarrow right around Wellington Harbour before finally ending at Owhiro Bay on Wellington’s South Coast.”
That’s great news for cyclists, who for too long have had to risk their lives and wheels along the edge, battling it out with the vehicles with more than 2 wheels. “Two wheels good, Four wheels bad, Twenty wheels just an accident waiting to happen”, as Napoleon…
read the full entryOne of our hard working sleuths posted us a sly link to this little beauty the other day – many thanks, for the interesting link, to this nice eco-friendly green kindergarten in Sighartstein, Austria by a German practice called Kada Wittfeld Architektur. To be frank: it intrigues me.
There’s a very clear simple diagram to this building – a 2-storey rectangular building surrounded by green meadows and fields, with glazed walls opening out to the sun on the ground floor for the older children, and a creche safely tucked away on the first floor. The shield that wraps around the upper…
read the full entry