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…
Fish
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Architecture. Pyramids. Grain stores. I know it is a long way away from Wellington Architecture and Urbanism, but we do have a link – we have a Pyramid in Civic Square (sort of), so I reckon we can stretch the bounds of reason to get in a story about this. The stupidity of the average American public amuses the heck out of me, no end. On…
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The Blyth Performing Arts Centre, at Iona College in Havelock North, has scooped the winning pool and been awarded the NZIA 2016 New Zealand Architecture Medal, for best building in the country. For the sake of those of our readers who are not 11-16 year old girls, or who don’t live in Havelock North, the Eye of the Fish made a special visit to Iona –…
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Stuart Gardyne (of Architecture +) has won the NZIA Gold Medal for Architecture, for 2015. Well done. That’s a great achievement – click to watch the film here. It’s nice to see a Wellingtonian be recognised once again – there currently seems to be a strong Auckland-only focus to the NZIA. But Gardyne hasn’t been selected just because he lives and works in Wellington, or just…
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I’m loving the new kiwi version of Grand Designs. The host, Chris Moller, seems to be settling well into his job – and last night’s show was an absolute blinder. Architect Nic Ballara’s house (BBC Architects), clinging to the side of a cliff in Wellington, was a fascinating build to watch, and the finished creation was a joy to behold. Even the Stuff website has some…
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Zealandia: funny name, funny building, great concept. When it was started off, it was seen as a mad, wild-eyed crazy concept, that all rodents could be eradicated and just the flightless birds kept. It became New Zealand’s first – and perhaps the world’s first mainland sanctuary for flightless birds. Nowadays, of course, it has proved that it can indeed be done and indeed, the concept is…
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Today is the Future. Yes indeed: we have finally got there. 21 October 2015, the far off future as envisaged by Spielberg and the Doc and Marty McFly all those years ago in 1985. Yes, I know, half the world may also be celebrating this fictional episode, but why can’t we do that at the Eye of the Fish as well? After all, if you’re going…
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We may, or may not, be going to get a longer runway, but it seems we are going to be getting a largish hotel to stay in, next to jet city. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about airport hotels – having only once stayed in one when I got bumped off a flight in the USA and we got bussed to an anonymous block…
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Wellington has long had a good sense of social justice in its housing portfolio – but has also been lagging behind with the upgrades, until recently. Over the last 10 years many of the social housing blocks in Wellington have been substantially refurbed – and now comes the turn of Arlington. This block, a large central city Mt Cook / Te Aro / Edge of Aro…
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Newsflash – the RIBA have just awarded the Gold Medal to Zaha Hadid. Fantastic news – she’s one of my heroes. Totally brilliant, totally mad, totally British, totally uncompromising, totally scary. Fantastic woman, fantastic architect – and fantastic also that this is the first time ever that the RIBA, traditionally a collection of crusty boring old men, has crowned a woman with the Gold Medal. I…