“Better Te Aro Collective”. Like others, I’ve been surprised to see the sudden emergence of this Better Te Aro group, who have garnered two newspaper headlines in the last week. Who are they? Where do they come from? Why do they claim to speak for Te Aro? Do they own Te Aro? Do you have to own a coffee shop to belong? There is no website…
Fish
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Leviathan
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The newish route of State Highway One, known as Karo Drive (oh, such droll naming – the Karo tree is a vile weedy thing exploding black pustulant seed pods all over the surrounding area, and grows like crazy – perfect for Cars…), has for the last decade or so had a series of forelorne landlocked lumps of lost and lonely land scattered along the length of…
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Leviathan
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Is this real consultation, or is this just another sham? That’s the question you have to ask yourself, on the NZTA’s/WCC’s/GWRC’s Get Welly Moving website, purporting to be asking Wellingtonians exactly what they want on the transport for the region and the city. Why are they asking this? What will they do with the answers they receive? What if the answers give them an answer that…
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Leviathan
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An impassioned plea by a reader of the blog (possibly the last / the only reader) has given me a prod up the dorsal fin, and convinced me that I should perhaps try to continue this blog. Thanks Frank! It’s an interesting question though – why are we / why am I doing this? At times under various writers it has been a commentary on things…
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nemo
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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…
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Leviathan
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It is April 1st, still, and yet this is not an April Fool joke – sadly, tragically, one of the world’s most influential architects, Zaha Hadid, has died at age 65. And yes, she was also a woman. She was also British, phlegmatic, born in Iraq, educated at the AA in London, and reputedly an absolute tyrant to work for, but she was, undoubtedly, a most…
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Leviathan
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There has been a surprising move in the stoush over the design of the Pukeahu National War Memorial Skate-boarding Park. Although this blog has been a bit quiet recently (or half dead!), readers of more mainstream media may have picked up on the story that the original landscape architects of the park, Wraight Athfield, have been dropped for the extension on the corner of Taranaki St…
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Leviathan
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I’ve just spotted a trailer for a film that is opening today in the UK – not sure when it will come here – a production of the “unfilmable” JG Ballard novel. High-Rise. Hiddleston. Barbican. Shanghai. Brunswick. Wheatley. What’s not to like? Trailer is here: And a very good review of it, here: Looking forward to this one !
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Leviathan
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We’re incredibly lucky to have with us today a veritable goddess of global city design, Skye Duncan. She’s talking today (Friday) at 1.30 at OPUS in the Majestic Centre and then at 3pm at the School of Architecture. You need to book – but Wow – she is totally worth it. If there is someone that Wellington needs right now, it is a visionary urban designer…
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Leviathan
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We’ve come across this project, by Wellington-based students, for a really worthy cause. Designing a building in Africa is one thing, and these ex-Victoria students have won a competition to do just that. Now they have to go ahead and build it. And they are raising money to do so – with your help they will get there. We don’t normally do commercial links here at…