Just a short note to alert residents of the Inner City to a meeting for a possible formation of an inner-city Residents Association. It’s on Monday 1st September, at 5.30pm at the Southern Cross Bar in Abel Smith St. Initially an initiative of Grant Robertson, the Labour candidate for Wellington Central, and echoing a similar initiative from Mark Blumsky, a National MP and former mayor,…
Maximus
2 Min Read
Passing along the waterfront last night, on a wettish, cold, windy Wednesday evening, I was bemused to find Shed 5 packed to the gills with large men in suits – but then I remembered – of course – the Property Council of New Zealand is in town for their annual conference. The theme for this year is Building Succesful Cities, and so its interesting to see…
Philip
1 Min Read
Yesterday 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…
Maximus
2 Min Read
It’s hard to imagine the joy I felt this morning catching the bus to work and finally seeing someone else actually using a Snapper Card. I had been quietly trying to convince myself that the seemingly slow uptake of this local version of London’s Oyster card was due to unspent currency of 10-ride bus tickets – but alas there always seemed to be too much hard…
Maximus
1 Min Read
I’ve just found out that Wellington Civic Trust is once again holding its Awards this year, and nominations are open once more: click here. Last held in 2005, perhaps there hasn’t been enough exciting public work for the Trust to have had Awards for the last couple of years – however, surely there are enough to give awards by now. Last time, there was a simple…
Maximus
2 Min Read
There are still many good signs of a healthy construction industry in Wellington, with a number of apartment projects underway. Two of these under construction at present are interesting as they show such different methods of construction. One of them, the Piermont apartments, by Stratum Management (Architecture +), took a while to get out of the ground due to basements almost below the water level, and…
Maximus
1 Min Read
Following fast on the footsteps of the previous post on Courtenay Park, which some are labeling as ‘grim’, I’d like to put forward another contender for the title of ‘grim urban park’: yes, that of the SLOAP that is the ‘park’ of the Bypass. I’m not sure that Transit, the designers of mighty roading projects, have really got the hang of designing places for people yet….
Maximus
1 Min Read
So National has pledged to reform the RMA within its first 100 days of office, should it get elected. Some people are getting very excited about that. ACT seems to think this may mean less restrictions on suburban land for housing, and let ‘good’ projects start and finish earlier. National seems to think that key ‘infrastructure’ projects will get a green light with less soul-searching. Labour…
Maximus
1 Min Read
I’ve just spotted this blank wall being constructed beside the main route into the city from the airport. Facing north, providing a beautiful backdrop for shadow play of pohutukawa, as well as a future venue for no doubt countless mindless scribblings, is a blank wall. Courtesy of the ArcHaus architectural team. Is this really what we want to be seen from the main road? Is…
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