The Wellington City Council must have known it was going to be picking a hard road to go down when it proposed Variation 11, and sure enough, the District Plan change is due to go to appeal at the Environment Court. Most of our readers will know about it: it’s a variation to permit buildings of a certain size to be constructed on the waterfront, without having to go through the publicly-notified Resource Consent stage. At present, of course, there’s a much more public-friendly situation in place: that every building higher than ground level will require to be notified –…
read the full entryFinished at last,
Finished at last,
Good God Almighty, Finished at Last!
It seems like an absolute age since it was started, and who knows really if it has actually been finished, and who knows why they didn’t take the opportunity to go up another 10 floors with some rinky-dinky inner-city flats while they were there but I’m glad they didn’t, and all that aside: the Moore Wilson’s shop / empire that we all love to shop at (DavidP and Robyn, I suspect, in particular) seems to have reached a state of equilibrium at long last. It is fantastic, and gorgeous, and –…
read the full entryThe Commissioners have been busy of late. When the going gets tough, in a small city like this, there’s only one thing to do: call in the Commissioner. The big news for Wellington is of course that Indoor Sports Centre is ready to rumble.
Yes, the independent Commissioner, John Anderson, has prepared his final report and is ready to report back to Wellington on the result today or tomorrow He’s reported back – see update below. We’d love to be able to scoop you (wait, we already have) the result of whether the Commissioner says “Yay”, or “No Way Jose”, to the Cobham…
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…
read the full entryIf 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…
read the full entryHaving finally made my way down to the Waterfront Information Center, I was able to take more of a broad look at the Athfield Kumutoto wins. The pictures and write-up shown in the Dom really don’t give a full idea of the scheme, so here is something of a brief second look at the project. Apologies for the poor picture quality, need to start getting us those press releases….
For me, the biggest reveal was the city-side façades. Site 10 adopts a fenestration patterning similar to that used by the near-by BNZ waterfront project, but breaks the mould by adding a…
read the full entryJust a few days after a clean sweep at Kumotomo, the Athfield-designed proposal for the Overseas Terminal has suffered a setback when an officer’s report recommended that the project be declined.
For those unfamiliar with the project, the development would create a retail ground level, with 4 upper floors housing 70 luxury apartments. A parking level would also be created on the underside of the wharf, and the public promenade upgraded. Tom’s excellent critique of the project is of course, recommended reading.
The report assesses that in its current form, the project will have severe adverse effects on the environment (assumedly this…
read the full entryAthfield Architects have scooped the waterfront prize-pool, with a clean sweep win of all the sites covered in the Kumutoto North competition. Well done indeed to Ath and his merry band of cliffside dwellers. Wellington Waterfront also deservers kudos for having running a competition in the first place, and for sneaking out the press release a mere 5 months after the competition was held. We’re not quite sure why it has taken so long for the decision to be know, but we’re glad that a new conversation can now begin in earnest.
The first question therefore is, have the judges chosen the…
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