There was some wonderful wooden news about Wellington last night, with the announcement of a new timber tower for the CBD. It’s a new building being developed for Robert Jones Holdings, which in itself is unusual as Sir Robert Jones normally just likes to buy and hold, but here his company has decided to redevelop the existing site. The new building has been designed according to…
I’m filling in here while Levi is away (not sure when he’ll be back again), so here is a welcome tale, not exactly about Wellington, but definitely about Architecture. You’ve probably all heard about the Venice Biennale of Art, where New Zealand has been exhibiting for the last several times, some more successfully than others? There’s also a Biennale of Architecture too, and Aotearoa has been…
Nau mai. Te Tiriti o Waitangi has been welcomed into its new home, a specially-designed whare at the National Library, along with two other founding documents of Aotearoa. It sits alongside He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni – the Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand, and the 32,000 signature petition on Women’s Suffrage – Te Petihana Whakamana PÅti Wahine, in…
One of the more enjoyable nights of the year for us architects is the Awards night, held in Te Papa last night. I thought the awards jury did a really good job this year and picked a smaller, but tighter bunch of projects for awards. There was a few awards for teams at the top of their game, but it was lovely to see a few…
Bit of a rush post, because you only have one day to view this – Rostrevor House, the greenish building on the corner of Marion Street and Vivian Street, is having giant strengthening frames installed today. It’s pretty exciting stuff. The frames (made by Fitzroy Engineering in New Plymouth) have travelled down at night and are going to be craned into position today. Honestly: blink and…
Seeing as we seem to be at a bit of a turning point in history (far easier to see in hindsight than at the time, but either way : there’s some pretty weird things happening on the political front world wide at present), then I thought I would have a look at where we stand. We’ve had a World War or two, a Gulf War or…
Prince Rogers Nelson, androgynous funkster, talented musician, sexy motherfucka, and the soundtrack to my life, has died, aged only 57. We all thought it was bad enough to have Bowie and Rickman pass away so early at 67, just a month or two back, but for Prince to pass on to the afterlife a whole decade earlier than that, is just a truly tragic shame. He…
On a miserable day like this, I thought a wee reminder of last weekend’s glorious weather would be nice. There’s something awe-inspiring about a waka on the waves. Waka was a lovely sight. As was the sight of everyone relaxing by the sea… But the thing I loved the most was this little boat…. …selling fish, straight from being caught at sea. Finely filleted, cleanly washed,…
Hello. I’m Nemo. Last week the Mayor of Wellington, Celia Wade Brown, tweeted excitedly that she was at the Wellington awards for Spatial Excellence, and that there was some fantastic spatial stuff out there. I’m not a fan of Twitter or the people that tweet non-stop about their experiences and occasional thoughts, as it is inevitably fairly banal, but there was something about this that made…