Following swiftly on from the post about the hole they’re digging, today I wanted to look at what is going to fill it. We posted some time ago on the project (just over a year ago) when it hit the papers, with a hideous green render, and speculated that the building would have a bit more development before it hit the site. And so it has. Thanks to a helpful tip off from one of our daily Fish readers (thanks Mark), who spotted that Willis Central have upgraded the info on their website, there are some spanking new images to…
read the full entryThe scaffold has come down and the last of the glass balustrading was going on Saturday morning – and its great to see at last what Piermont really looks like.
This is an apartment building that has been carefully designed for this particular corner: maximising the views out to the Waitangi Park, carefully trying to avoid seeing too much of the black hulk of the Museum Hotel, and staunchly turning its back to Portal, the other Architecture + development for CAS just up the road.
It’s always hard to comment about a building if you haven’t been…
read the full entryYes, tonight is the night for the architectural community, as the local Wellington region Awards for Architecture and annual knees up are being held tonight. Last year the awards went to the New Dowse, the Masterton Police Station and the Greytown Town Hall, Holiday Inn, the new Maritime Tower, Len Lye’s water whirler, the waterfront refurbishment of Shed 13, and the highly deserved award for Conservation House (which went on to win a Supreme Award by the year’s end), as well as a swathe of awards for some very fine housing. Awards are being held in the very evocatively period…
read the full entryDown 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?
read the full entryYesterday we had a rather interesting talk from Sam Kebbel of Kebbell Daish Architects, discussing Joanna Langford’s The Beautiful and the Damned – a piece currently installed in the Michael Hirschfeld Gallery.
The artwork creates an ethereal urban skyline, pieced together from the glowing windows of unbalanced buildings, with a sharp scale shift provided by the odd street lamp. This is all constructed from the soft glows of backlit computer keyboards, and the odd street level LED – producing a memorable, sublime image of the urban landscape. (more in the introduction)
The stunning use of materials is a great neighbour…
read the full entryWellington’s apartment / property market continues on at (almost) full pace. Perhaps there is no reason for Kiwis to be so pessimistic in their outlook after all – there may be a global credit crunch, but evidently Wellington is doing just fine. OK, so we all have heard that the Auckland apartment market has tanked in a big way, but then again: if you allow hectares of bland unexciting crap to be built, you should expect to reap what you sow. However, Wellington seems to have better architects, better control over what the end result looks like, better planned developments –…
read the full entryIn what may be viewed as the last gasp actions of an arts-loving Prime Minister, a massive refurbishment of the National Library in Wellington has been unveiled by Helen Clark today. The ever-present “Government Architect” Warren and Mahoney have pulled off an audacious move to the formerly venerated building that holds our national collections. Even though there was a large renovation to the Library in the last few years, with Athfield Architects installing a shiny new glass entry into the 1970s designed building in an arguably somewhat un-necessary architectural move, today the proposed “extension” is revealed to rip the entire…
read the full entryFor the last two years since the demolition of the antiquated Wellington hospital, a massive construction has been taking place in Newtown, balanced on its giant rubber base-isolated foundations. Yes it’s too late to ignore it anymore – the hospital has reached a state of completion that, while still some way to go, affords us a chance to review the progress so far.
After a number of years of fighting whether it would be situated in Kenepuru, miles from its constituents in Wellington, it was agreed that a new hospital should rise in the east like a biblical star.…
read the full entryWhile vaguely in the political arena, I thought I would take a moment to help propogate a recently written address to the New Zealand Institute of Architects. The address follows on from the (relatively) recent Pacific Students of Architecture Congress, and details some of the problems surrounding the disciple of architecture that were explored by the conference.
My knowledge on NZIA matters is fairly limited, so im going to refrain from commentary. But please, feel free to add your say – this is certainly an important issue.
An open letter to the NZIA [pdf]
read the full entryHot on the heels of the Barrio development comes another development of inner-city apartments (first blogged on WellUrban). This one is designed by Archaus – the most prolific architects in Wellington. The site has had a couple of schemes proposed for it previously: one by Abri Architects of Auckland which was shot down in flames pretty quickly, and the other, curvy one that never really saw the light of day except for a feature in the Wellurban blog. This one may be around a little longer.
The site, is a highly sought after corner close to Cuba St,…
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