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…
Philip
33 Articles
A student at Victoria, blogging to help cultivate an interest and education in all things design, architecture and urbanism.
Philip
1 Min Read
Its that time again – time for another round in the turtle-paced tennis match that is the public consultation process. This time the ball is back in our court, taking the form of a new draft plan for the Ngauranga-Airport transport corridor. The plan is quick to address what is perhaps the most topical of the proposed options: light rail. To summarise, the report concludes that…
Philip
3 Min Read
The Courtenay Place Park seems more-or-less finished now, having recently unveiled the second and final stage of it’s development. A very minimal and very urban park, it’s strengths lies in the quality of the finish and detailing, as well as the enhancement of pedestrian flow within this highly-traffic area. The park creates two axes, each in parallel to the adjacent street or footpath, resulting a wedge-shaped…
Philip
1 Min Read
It seems that the roadmap to congestion pricing is itself congested: gridlocked by an array of obstacles and opinions. We have a $200k report/proposal, dense legal obstacles, technical challenges, a mayor that is “not even lukewarm”, and a public that is overwhelming against the issue. So what happens next? Nothing? The first hurdle seems to lie with parliament, in the resolution of the various legal issues…
Philip
1 Min Read
While 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…
Philip
1 Min Read
Shane Jones – Minister of Building and Construction – is looking to change portions of the Resource Management Act, aiming to reduce the costs associated with building homes. Affecting both a range of project scales, the proposals represent a relaxation of the Act’s strict dictates. On the smaller scale it looks like DIY-ers will face less restrictions when performing minor alterations to their own property. That…
Philip
1 Min Read
The potential Hilton hotel has had the appeals against its consent upheld, signalling what is likely to be the end of the controversial waterfront proposal. Having started the applications process back in later 2005, the news seems like it will be a decisive blow to the project; although an appeal is possible, it must go through the High Court. The presiding judge cited all the usual…
Philip
1 Min Read
Is it just me, or has the media coverage of the proposed Courtenay Place changes focused a little too much on the issues related to the curbing of an “out-of-control” party zone, much to the detriment of several other important issues. For example, in the Dominion Post it was noted that: “Out-of-control drinking … has prompted a radical review, which could result in which could result…
Philip
1 Min Read
If you haven’t yet, I would definitely recommend that you head down to Te Papa and check out Body Movies. Part of the Arts Festival, the installation projects street photography in combination with the silhouettes of the viewers – producing something akin to overscaled shadow puppetry. Conceived by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and sponsored by Meridian Energy, it is the 6th in a series of “Relational Architecture”…