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Issue 31 Mar - May 2019 $14.90

Interior Magazine presents:

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The Interior Awards recognises trends and innovators and celebrates excellence in design and architecture in public, private and commercial spaces. Enter today!

Award Categories Retail; Hospitality; Civic; Workplace (up to 1000m2); Workplace (over 1000m2); Craftsmanship; Emerging Design Professional; Student; and new Residential category. interiorawards.co.nz

RICHARD HARRIS

DEIDRE BROWN

DAVE STRACHAN

MELANIE MCDAID

FEDERICO MONSALVE

Director Richard Harris Architects

Head of the Auckland School of Architecture and Planning

Director SGA Architects

Design Director Sloane and Peach

Editor Interior Magazine

CONTENTS

APERTURE

PROJECTS

FORUM

Red Wall A new fine-dining Auckland restaurant has a fascinating history and a fitting design intent p.10

Capital Character The new Wellington headquarters of Deloitte tenderly reference the region’s elemental qualities p.22

Miss Fortune’s We visit a playful, colourful and intensely graphic oasis in a Wellington industrial area p.11

SO/ Playful A boutique hotel in central Auckland has been injected with an abundance of personality, thanks to a coterie of designers at its helm p.32

Material Symphony Danish interior designer David Thulstrup shows us a portfolio that’s quickly blossoming with enviable spaces p.54

Clarence Hotel & Bistro Tauranga’s historic post office is given a fresh lease of life with a new hotel and bistro p.12 Designer Interview Sabine Marcelis has established a revered brand and reputation.

We talk to the Dutch-born, Wellington-educated designer, who is exploring materiality p.14 The Room An unusual, door-less performing arts venue in Hong Kong is making its local and global mark p.18

On a Good Buzz The B:Hive, though still being given its final touches at Smales Farm, is a co-working space punctuated with bold, charismatic details. We peer inside this big facility to learn how its design functions p.42

You’ve Been Friended Communal spaces have been burgeoning as the age of social media continues, paradoxically, to sever our social ties p.62 Urban Laboratories As liminal spaces are increasingly being given a sense of place, the significance of airport typology undergoes a necessary rethink p.66 In Conversation From visiting architects and tech academics to the CEO of Precinct Properties and beyond, we catch up with industry leaders to feel the pulse of things to come pp.68-75 Personal Space We meet Michael Leng from Wingate Architects p.80

Publisher Nathan Inkpen Senior Editor Federico Monsalve Art & production director André Kini Design studio Thomas Cannings, Elliot Ferguson Editorial Assistant Julia Gessler Advertising enquiries mark.lipman@agm.co.nz Printer Nicholson Print Solutions Distribution Gordon & Gotch ISSN 2230-5696 (Print) ISSN 2324-4259 (Online) Subscriptions Interior is published four times a year Subscription rates NZ$51 per year Email subs@agm.co.nz Subscribe online agm.co.nz/store/ Interior is owned and published by BCI New Zealand Pty Ltd, publishers of Urbis, Architecture New Zealand, Houses, architecturenow.co.nz, selector.com and urbismagazine.com. Interior is supported by CoreNet, New Zealand Green Building Council and Facility Managers of New Zealand. Unless expressly stated, statements and opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views of these organisations, or their executives, committees or branches, or of BCI New Zealand Pty Ltd or its staff. BCI New Zealand Pty Ltd, Level 2, 409 New North Road, Kingsland, Auckland 1021, New Zealand Phone +64 9 846 4068 Fax +64 9 846 8742 Website agm.co.nz | © 2019 BCI New Zealand Pty Ltd

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MONOLOGUE

There is no denying that power structures are currently under intense scrutiny. Hierarchies and their inherent power imbalances, a long history of gender bias and abuse within the workplace… they are but a sample of the many polarising topics currently being dissected and challenged in the public sphere.

How does interior design fit within those discussions?

In the Forum section of this issue, we ask many questions around the politics of the built environment, from inclusive city-making through to the potential for added transparency in the construction supply chain thanks to blockchain (a nascent technology behind cryptocurrencies).

We speak to some of the visiting speakers at the NZIA’s in:situ conference including two talented female architects in Canada and the UK who are changing the system from within. We look into various world projects trying to foster actual, real-world, human connections in an era increasingly reliant on social media. Likewise, an expert on airports explores the potential of the typology and more.

Perhaps the questions shouldn’t be around interior’s place within the political zeitgeist but one of how to create interiors that ensure an inclusive, humanist and progressive environment in which similar ideals can thrive.

“We have to be very vigilant about [large residential precinct] projects and not let the market alone dictate the way cities are built... There are some people who try to build in discussion about the unintended consequences of investments of this scale – whether that is displacement, gentrification or a perversion of cultural memory or history.”

Christopher Hawthorne (chief design officer for the city of Los Angeles) in discussion with Interior.

Federico Monsalve – Editor

Image of the Moooi chandelier at the entrance and reception area of SO/ Auckland.

For full coverage, see page 32.

Email us federico.monsalve@agm.co.nz Follow us interiormagazinenz Like us facebook.com/ArchitectureNow

4

A

ECC Architectural

Deloitte Wellington

Lighting, iGuzzini.

CONTRIBUTORS

ANDY SPAIN

JULIA GESSLER

ANDRÉ KINI

Photographer Andy studied an MA in Photography in London and moved to New Zealand in 2015. He has spent 15 years as a freelance photographer, specialising in architecture.

Editorial Assistant Julia supports Interior and Urbis, offering editorial services to both magazine titles.

She has a degree with honours in Comparative Literature and Culture with Visual Arts.

Art and Production Director André is the art and production director at AGM, the publisher of Interior magazine. Among many other things, he is responsible for the overall visual flow, design and layout of Interior.

YOU PHOTOGRAPHED DELOITTE’S OFFICE IN THIS

YOU WERE IN LONDON FOR THREE YEARS.

WHAT IS ONE OF YOUR FAVOURITE PROJECTS

ISSUE. WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS THE MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT THIS WORKPLACE?

WAS THERE A BUILDING THERE THAT PARTICULARLY CAPTURED YOUR ATTENTION?

YOU’VE WORKED WITH LATELY?

It’s all about the arrival with the sculptural island. It contains small offices in which to meet clients alongside glimpses out to Wellington Harbour. It’s a stunning space.

The Barbican Centre was a standout.

By day, the brutalist structure has all the qualities of its style – a rawness and a hope for something utopian. Yet, at night, there’s a silence that seems so out of place in the city. It seemed otherworldly then, as though it were the result of a shotgun wedding between DC’s Gotham and the glass city of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We.

WHAT IS YOUR OWN WORKPLACE LIKE?

I moved into a new office a while back.

I’m lucky enough to be in the old Melling Morse space on Egmont Street in Wellington, alongside Melling Architects and Tse Architects and underneath the iconic skybox. I couldn’t be happier here and love being central. When I wander outside, I always bump into so many architects.

IS THERE SOMETHING – A PLACE, SPACE, OBJECT OR PERSON – YOU WOULD MOST LIKE TO PHOTOGRAPH?

Anything that combines good architecture and a new place to visit keeps me satisfied. If pushed, I saw some images of the National Museum of Qatar

by Jean Nouvel nearing completion the other day – that looks incredible.

6

In my role, I have the absolute privilege of working with incredible local and international architectural projects and interiors. The standout over the last 12 months was undoubtedly He Tohu Document Room, for the Treaty of Waitangi, in Wellington. It is a beautiful and inspiring space that complements the cultural significance of its contents, melding traditional carving with a progressive, modern aesthetic.

WHAT ABOUT AN INTERIOR SPACE?

The Gallery room in Sketch, designed

by India Mahdavi. It’s saccharine, rosequartz-coloured and candyfloss-like, and, despite being one room in a labyrinthine maze of other entirely different rooms, it sits defiantly apart. In retrospect, you don’t remember the design pieces or even the food from the restaurant first. The only thing that immediately comes to mind is pink.

HAS ANY DESIGN PHILOSOPHY LEFT A LASTING IMPRESSION ON YOU?

Dieter Rams’ ‘Less is more’ ethos: it’s an elegantly simple, though oft-repeated, principle. Its elegance comes from the fact that it’s riddled with contradiction; not only is it an oxymoron, it’s easy to understand but very difficult to implement.

WHAT ASPECTS OF THAT PROJECT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE MORE OF?

I think we’re seeing it already. Civic projects around the country have increasingly been incorporating Māori and Pacifika design influences and encouraging collaborations.

Te Oro in Glen Innes and the restoration of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki are two fruitful examples.

DO YOU THINK THERE IS A RECIPE FOR GOOD DESIGN?

Good design should always keep the enduser in mind. We can easily fly off into the clouds, which can be entertaining, but it’s a method that isn’t necessarily a conduit for successful outcomes. Being functional, innovative and ethically responsive, as well as having a high degree of honesty, are all elements of a great design framework.

PROJECTS

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APERTURE 03.2019

News and Reviews: We explore the theme of this year’s CoreNet Symposium; Tauranga’s post office undergoes a considered update; A whimsical café in Lower Hutt opens its bold new doors. pp. 10-12.

Designer Interview: Dutch-born and Wellington-educated designer Sabine Marcelis has made a name for herself in Europe. p.14.

The Room: In Hong Kong’s cultural district, a door-less performing arts venue is leaving an indelible mark. p.18.

APERTURE

(Top three images) The interior of Red Wall 1939 acknowledges its botanical surrounds while offering a traditional Chinese decor inspired by iconic landscape paintings from the Song Dynasty.

IMPERIAL TABLE Red Wall 1939 is a new Chinese fine-dining restaurant in Auckland, with a fascinating history and an equal measure of design intent.

Liu Jian – grandson to Chairman Mao’s former personal chef – has opened his first restaurant outside of China in Parnell’s rose garden.

As a way to maintain the fine-dining and exclusive ethos of his family's restaurants and as a way of opening up this culinary tradition to the West, Jian’s interior design brief was clear: to break existing stereotypes of what a ‘Chinese’ hospitality interior looks like – “red and gold with hanging lanterns” – he said to Interior. Likewise, its location in a heritage building within the rose garden meant they had to consider its botanical context and architectural history.

Close to 9000 individual pieces of tableware have all been individually hand painted by a team who “pass their skills through family generations,” he explained,

10

showing a photo of a team of 12–15 people responsible for the delicate pieces. Each silver, ash or porcelain piece is made to correlate with some of the intricate and almost-painterly items that are served in them. As a way to maintain congruency between the mostly bespoke items that form the interior, the restaurateur selected two traditional Chinese landscape paintings from the Song Dynasty (960–1127). The first, by teen prodigy Wang Ximeng, offered the interior palette: a mixture between teal and half-tea, with accents of gold and white. The second, by Mi Youren, was used as a thematic piece; Jian felt it celebrated the landscape of China while offering similarities to the white clouds he noticed from the aeroplane before landing here.

(This page) The majority of the furniture, light pieces, tableware, utensils and ceramics were commissioned specifically for this restaurant.

APERTURE

LADY LUCK Miss Fortune’s offers an oasis of colour and graphic extravaganza to an industrial zone in Wellington.

(This page) This café stands out through a strong graphic treatment. It quotes the jazz era, zoltar machines, old Vietnamese posters and a strong colour identity.

Little could have been as surprising as the opening of Miss Fortune’s coffee shop and tea room in Lower Hutt at the beginning of the year. Set against a semi-industrial backdrop, its brazen colour blocks, unblushing amongst their surrounds, sit worlds apart. Co-owned by Matthew Wilson and Freya Atkinson, who also founded Petone's fairgroundesque café Seashore Cabaret, it’s a design that reflects the owners’ penchant for playful eclecticism. Posters from Wilson’s travels around Vietnam, “a personal collection”, he explains, are hung along the walls, while larger-than-life elements, such as the counters and outdoor signage, were made under the direction of Oregon-based graphic design cognoscente and friend, Sam O’Leary of Conduction. As it is with Wilson and Atkinson’s Petone-based venture, at the heart of this eatery is a sense of whimsy that resonates in every space and interstice.

APERTURE

NEW LIFE FOR TAURANGA’S POST OFFICE

(This page) Clarence Bistro, designed by Mike Marshall, is conscious of the historic nature and purpose of the building in which it is situated.

Renovating a historic building requires an acute sensitivity. Too much historicity and the space can feel outdated; too little and its original charm is lost to modern flourishes. For Mike Marshall, who was charged with designing Tauranga’s Clarence Hotel & Bistro, located inside the city’s former post office, striking the right balance was paramount. “Because it is a historic, Category 1 listed building, which had been used for a multitude of purposes,” he explains, “it was necessary to strip back layers of pastiche and apply a design logic that would sympathetically embellish the building with its modern, contextual approach.”

It was a line of action that convinced clients Kim and Noel Cimadon to utilise the floor above the bistro and turn it into a 10-bedroomed boutique hotel. With Noel carefully overseeing the wider design process and Kim acting as the director of operations, the hotel – created in 1906 by Scottish architect John Campbell – was refitted with considered additions. Feature walls in each room were painted on new plasterboard and extended across the ceilings, while existing brickwork was purposely exposed in the stairwell and punctuated with artworks by Cambridge artist Cara Fotofili. Yet, for all of these regional inclusions, the project’s influences were distinctly international.

“Current design in Europe has moved to an opulent expression while still incorporating a raw aesthetic that allows beautiful fabrics to be set against original, raw materials,” says Marshall, describing the style he used to supplement the Edwardian Baroque building. “These allow a designer to explore the best of both worlds.”

CORENET SYMPOSIUM While the budding signs of winter indicate that cold’s to come, they also hint at something else that’s fast approaching: the CoreNet Global New Zealand Symposium, the season’s premier event for property professionals. This year, the symposium has been organised to take place on 30 May in Shed 10 on Auckland’s Queens Wharf and boasts a pertinent theme: The Intuitive Place – Technology making better places for people.

Recognising that intuitive design – places that are reactive to their users – is a burgeoning market, the symposium will look at the ways in which companies can harness technology and data to foster greater productivity in the workplace. “The symposium this year is highly relevant to interiors professionals,”

12

says CoreNet executive director for New Zealand, Nigel Rye. “All across the world, places are springing up that know your desires before you do, based on your past patterns of behaviour. Responsive places are becoming increasingly important for people, companies and real estate providers.”

As in previous years, an impressive line-up of speakers will bring a wealth of ideas with them. They include: Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales; Philipp Siedler and Lorena Espaillat Bencosme, the former a designer and the latter a strategic space planner at renowned firm Zaha Hadid Architects; and Dr Daniel Davis, lead researcher at co-working company

WeWork. From them, as well as others, we will hear how automation can increase the rate at which we problem-solve and learn how to apply new technologies for the benefit of both employees and customers.

It’s a programme that, in the spirit of each year’s event, is poised to address significant industry changes and provide practical lessons on ways to adapt to them. “It is no longer a matter of guesswork to create places that learn and respond to people,” says Rye. “We will ask the question at our symposium this year: How can you use this latest thinking to make your people’s lives better and your business more profitable over the short, medium and long term?” corenetsymposium.co.nz

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APERTURE

DESIGNER INTERVIEW Dutch-born and Victoria University of Wellington-educated Sabine Marcelis has created a strong industrial design brand in Europe. Words: Tracey Ingram Sabine Marcelis has difficulty defining what she does. Yes, she’s a designer but what exactly does she make? Her signature is stamped on products, installations and interior objects but the final result of each output generally becomes clear only along the way. “I don’t start something by sitting down in a chair with a sketchbook,” she says. “More often than not, each new piece builds on something that happened in a previous project. Maybe I’ll create a cool effect and want to explore it further at a later date. Will it become a sundial or a light? I wait and see.”

Exploring materiality is Marcelis’ modus operandi. She collaborates with industry specialists to bring matter – predominantly glass and resin – to life. Her relationship with a glass manufacturer, for instance, began back in design school and has led to ongoing experimentation.

The designer was drawn to glass and resin for the huge potential they offer. “Adding different layers to glass produces different effects, from matte to mirror and everything in between. With resin, it’s the same; the outcome depends on the recipe.”

Born in the Dutch city of Alkmaar, Marcelis grew up just outside of Rotterdam, the city she now calls home. Much of her adolescence, though, was spent in New Zealand. She was 10 years old when her Dutch parents fancied a change of lifestyle and shifted to the other side of the world.

Having never set foot in New Zealand, they planned to tour the North Island in a campervan before eventually putting down roots in Christchurch. Upon arriving in Waihi, however, the family was overcome by the small town’s charm and chose to stay.

At age 21, Marcelis ventured to Victoria University of Wellington to study industrial design. After two years in the Kiwi capital, she felt restless. Her connection to the Netherlands pulled her to renowned Dutch institution Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), a place she believed she’d have more freedom for conceptual thinking. Looking back, Marcelis feels she

14

(Top image) Marcelis sits beside a cube prototype at her home. (Left) Her Dawn series is formed from neon tubing in resin.

APERTURE

(Above) Marcelis helped craft the flagship store of French jewellery house Repossi.

(Above) The entrance-way to KaDeWe department store in Berlin.

“got the best of both worlds” – the technical and practical side from Victoria, and a sense of independence from DAE. “Those skills were crucial when I started out on my own.”

Marcelis started out by flying under the radar. “I launched a studio after graduating and thought, ‘Now I work for myself’. But I didn’t have any projects.” Some fashion-related assignments initially came her way “but the public didn’t know about them”. She also began collaborating with acclaimed architecture practice OMA. In other words, her work was out there but hidden behind the façade of bigger names. It was when Victor Hunt Gallery showcased her Dawn light series at Design Miami/ in 2015 that Sabine Marcelis, the designer, came into focus. “I wanted to work with neon lights,” she recalls. “Dawn was about exploring what happens when an illuminated strip comes into contact with another material, manipulating and disrupting it.

That one project suddenly generated plenty of press and a show in Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen followed. Because I had a lot of other work about to come out – the Repossi store for OMA, my cast-resin Candy Cubes, the Seeing Glass mirrors I did together with Brit van Nerven – there was so much reserve ammo for the press to jump on.”

15

APERTURE

“...I never want to compromise my ideas to make them more commercial.

My work shouldn’t be an ad campaign.”

Sabine Marcelis

Repossi in Paris marked Marcelis’ inaugural augmentation from object to space. Playing the interior’s minor role of material designer, she developed reflective walls that gradually tint for the jewellery boutique. “It was the first time I’d had to consider how you perceive a completely mirrored space, rather than presenting a mirror as an object within a space.” Repossi had a knock-on effect, too; Marcelis went on to develop an entrance for OMA’s KaDeWe department store in Berlin and is currently working with the architects on an upcoming building in Japan.

Marcelis’ to-do list always includes a mix of commissions alongside self or gallery-initiated work. The latter has no client in mind, giving the designer carte blanche – “they’re quite selfish undertakings”. Commissions for brands and architectural projects are increasing, which she finds incredibly interesting. “I’m obviously not trained as an architect but I’m fortunate that people trust me to work in that way. My team now includes three architects, who are focusing on a big interior project in Russia. I find it important to link these commissions back to the brand so that the whole story makes sense, but I never want to compromise my ideas to make them more commercial. My work shouldn’t be an ad campaign.”

A case in point is Fendi’s 2018 Design Miami/ contribution. The fashion house collaborates with a designer for the yearly event, the results of which, typically, are furniture. In a bid to “do something different”, Marcelis is making 10 fountains. “When I dug into the archive to understand the brand better, the theme of water kept reappearing. Fendi restored Rome’s famous Trevi Fountain, for example, and photos by the brand’s late artistic director Karl Lagerfeld appeared in an exhibition called The Glory of

16

(Left and above) Salle Privée’s Milan showroom.

(Below) The Dutch pavilion at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

Water. Marcelis decided to treat H2O as a material, examining how its form changes in response to various resin structures. “It’s my first time working with complicated moulds. I often shy away from organic shapes in favour of pure and simple ones. But this project demanded something else.”

Until now, Marcelis feels she’s been riding the incoming waves and taking things as they come. But those waves have been rather high.

“It’s not the healthiest way to live,” she says. “I’d like to focus on fewer ventures that are larger in scale. I’m fondest of site-specific custom projects.

Objects like my Candy Cubes become less interesting after a while; it’s the same thing over and over again. I prefer the challenge of creating something new.”

(Above) Iridescent Totem lights, designed in 2017 for Side Gallery.

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(This spread) An arrangement of scale-like fins, made from untreated marinegrade aluminium pipe, swirls and folds in unison. At night, the lights of the courtyard are intended to resemble a glowing lantern seen behind a flitting, beaded stage curtain.

18

APERTURE

THE ROOM

Words: Julia Gessler Images: Ema Peter

The West Kowloon Cultural District has been vying for cultural clout since the Hong Kong area was designed in 2010. This January, it confirmed its world-class stature; the Xiqu Centre, a performing arts venue and gateway to the fast-growing hub, opened its doors â&#x20AC;&#x201C; figuratively, that is, for the building deliberately lacks them.

Centred on qi, or flow, the ways in which the joint venture between Revery Architecture and Ronald Lu & Partners foster a sense of openness beyond its door-less design are manifold: paths curve around an expansive circular atrium; a 1073-seat Grand Theatre is suspended 27 metres above the ground; and a stark-white interior beckons in light.

While it sits among other notable developments (including an art museum by Herzog & de Meuron), the eight-storeyed complex stands apart â&#x20AC;&#x201C; so apart, in fact, that its design will be featured on the new Hong Kong $100 note, immortalised in print.

19

PROJECTS 03.2019

Deloitte: The new headquarters of this multinational organisation reference Wellington cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s elemental qualities. p.22.

SO/ Auckland: We tour a boutique hotel with lashings of personality, thanks to an impressive coterie of designers. p.32.

B:Hive: Bold, charismatic details make for a lively new co-working space on Aucklandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s North Shore. p.42.

PROJECTS: Deloitte

PROJECT: Deloitte Fit-out, Wellington CLIENT: Deloitte LOCATION: Wellington PROJECT TYPE: Workplace FLOOR AREA: 3,640m2

Capital character

Wellington’s cityscape and natural textures are brought inside Deloitte’s new headquarters.

Words Camille Khouri Images Andy Spain 23

PROJECTS: Deloitte

(This page) The reception ‘pod’ is framed in American white oak with a belt of Elitis Perles Jade around the middle.

The walls of this space are clad in Laminex Laminam in Filo. The glittering light fixture is an Innermost Facet chandelier by Tom Kirk from ECC.

within the new Deloitte building on Wellington’s waterfront enjoy front-row views across the harbour as well as some eclectic vistas of the city and the western hills beyond.

For Deloitte’s offices, which take up the 11th, half of the 12th, and the 13th floors, it was important not to compete with these views but to create a workplace with a sense of professionalism and equity, as well as some colourful references to the city below.

The building was designed by Studio Pacific Architecture (winners of the 2018 Supreme Award at the Interior Awards for the He Tohu Document Room), with the interior fit-out led by project architect Marcellus Lilley and director Stephen McDougall. With a deep floor plate, part of the design involved creating internal spaces within the floors that had their own characters.

On the central ‘client’ floor, the reception desk is formed within what the architects call ‘the pod’, which is designed with curves in a style that is reminiscent of an art deco theatre. “The meeting rooms are pushed to the perimeter on the central floor, leaving a deep-plan internal space within,” explains McDougall. “We created

OFFICES

24

an island – what we call a pod – which is an object in itself. Its curvature allows circulation to wrap around the outside. The material configuration, quality of finishes and colours give it a sense of being something special in relationship to the grey hues of the meeting rooms.”

The pod is framed in American white oak, with a belt of white, glass bead wallpaper adding a touch of sparkle, and is illuminated by the dim, dramatic lighting of the chandelier-style Innermost Facet Pendant in the waiting area. Meeting booths are housed in the sides of the pod, clad in a soft-blue-velvet wallcovering and with blue Varese cotton-velvet booth seats.

The pod connects to the staff hub beyond, which was located on this central floor to allow people working on the floors above and below to access it easily via the base build stair. The hub encompasses a staff kitchen and lounge and has a casual aesthetic, with Simon James stools and chairs, contemporary Plytech cabinetry and Tom Dixon lighting. The surprising heroes of this space are the Palsun PSP ceiling panels, which are printed with images from the forest canopy in Wellington’s green belt. “The ceilings are a device we utilised in a

“The meeting rooms are pushed to the perimeter on the central floor, leaving a deep-plan internal space within…”

(This page) The meeting booth within the pod features Boratti Ocean fabric on the walls and Varese on the booth seats, both sourced from Designers Guild. The table is American white oak.

A Wellington street grid is printed on the glass of the offices to provide privacy and visual interest.

(This spread) The ceiling of the staff hub on the central floor features Palsun PSP panels printed with images of a forest canopy in the Wellington area.

The wall covering is from VidaSpace.

(This page) There are four jewel-tone colour-ways in the suites; Judi Bagust artworks hang above the beds; Material Creative had the brass vanities, bedheads, beds, mirrors, desks, lighting above beds and bird lights custom-made.

(This page, clockwise from left) Chairs and stools in the staff hub are from Simon James and the lights above the wooden kitchen bench are Flask

by Tom Dixon.

The purple and pink chairs are Aspect October Wing chairs.

Office chairs and workstations are also from Aspect.

The carpet tiles used throughout the offices are from Interface.

PROJECTS: Deloitte

(This page) Views can be enjoyed across Wellington Harbour and the city, thanks to the decision to place the partners' offices within the interior of the floor plan.

headquarters, also completed by Studio Pacific and couple of locations,” says Lilley. “One is the staff hub; rendered uninhabitable by the Kaikōura earthquake, another is one of the partner meeting spaces, a lounge involved a good deal of change to the office layout as space. They turn up on the work floors as well as being the company grew. “Deloitte as an organisation is quite a way to break down the scale of the suspended ceiling. fluid and, over the years, has acquired a number of It helps define zones in those areas. The digital images different businesses,” says McDougall. “Even in former were commissioned for the fit-out with imagery taken fit-outs, we were continually changing arrangements from the Wellington region. Part of the articulation of to suit the acquisition of business the fit-out was the use of elements groups. The desire here was to allow of the site-specific context.” for blurring the boundaries between Another of these elements is the groups so they could ebb and flow the cartoon-style Wellington city organically.” street illustrations printed on the The partners have allocated lockers on the working floors (more offices but, rather than these being on this later). These lockers provide placed around the periphery or in storage for staff who hot desk, and the corners of the working floors, that is around a third of Deloitte they are located around the lift core staff, says McDougall. “Being to allow for all members of staff to an accountant-based company, Stephen McDougall enjoy the views. The offices also have Deloitte was an early adopter glass walls printed with a street grid of hot-desking, with staff often graphic to allow the sharing of daylight and to prevent mobile while completing audits. Sit-to-stand desks were, them from feeling too enclosed and separated. at first, a small percentage, but moving people instead While designed for a high level of professionalism, of walls and desks is very simple – you can adjust your there are some colourful surprises to be had in Deloitte’s workplace to suit your ergonomic requirements – so we Wellington offices, which may help to brighten the mood made every workspace sit-to-stand.” on some of the capital’s greyer days.

A previous iteration of the Deloitte Wellington

“The desire here was to allow for blurring the boundaries between the groups so they could ebb and flow organically”.

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PROJECTS: Deloitte

DESIGN STATEMENT Christopher Davidson was tasked with creating a mural inside the Deloitte HQ in Wellington (reproduced below). Here, he talks about the objective and the process.

To capture the essence and personality of the city, and a number of key landmarks, as you travel/ drift with the wind though the cityscape, with Deloitte at the centre of things.

The client, Insight Creative, and I compiled a list of the key buildings/landmarks to be included. Then it was pencil to paper – this stage is both exciting and a little daunting – working out how this fairly dry list will come together in an interesting, engaging artwork. After I had explored a few ideas, the sketch started to take its final form.

Once this was refined and the green light was given, I used it as a template for the final artwork.

The piece was completed over several days, after I had worked on a number of samples looking for the right weight and style of line. The final art for the mural was created using a digitising tablet and pen, set up to render lines with the same effect as is achieved with a Sharpie pen. This method offered the most flexibility for reusing the artwork over a number of walls, at different sizes and scales.

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PROJECT DETAILS

KEY MATERIALS

Project name: Deloitte Fit-out, Wellington Client: Deloitte Property owner: Fit-out within XXCQ – 20 Customhouse Quay (owned by Newcrest) Design practice: Studio Pacific Architecture Design team: Stephen McDougall, Marcellus Lilley, Melissa Robson, Dorian Minty, Jason Kowalak, Ariana Pia, Penny Angell Time schedule: 2015–2018 Project size: 3640m2

Paint: Dulux Appliances: Southern Hospitality Flooring: Interface Furniture: Aspect, Cite, Kada, Matisse, Simon James, UFL, Vidak Graphics (ceilings, lockers): Insight Creative, Retail Dimension Acoustic panelling: Autex Laminates: Laminex, Bestwood, Prime Panels Lighting: ECC Signage: Capitol Sign Services Wall vinyl: Élitis Textiles: Designers Guild, Maxwellrogers, Woven Image, Textilia, Camira, Simon James, Maharam, Walter Knoll Leather

PROJECTS: Deloitte

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PROJECTS: SO/ Auckland Hotel

PROJECT: SO/ Auckland Hotel CLIENT: Accor Hotels LOCATION: Auckland DESIGN: Moooi, Accor Design

(Marilyn Chang) team, CP Group, Space Studio, Benny Castles PROJECT TYPE: Hospitality

SO/ PLAYFUL

A new boutique hotel in Auckland takes on a volcanic theme and a celebrity fashion designer to inject personality and a lot of oomph.

Words Amanda Harkness Photography Tessa Chrisp

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(This page) The Mega Chandelier by Moooi Works commands the SO/ Auckland entry foyer with 68 individual lamps.

PROJECTS: SO/ Auckland Hotel

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PROJECTS: SO/ Auckland Hotel

(This spread) Extravagant fittings can be found throughout, creating a sense of luxury that is audacious and refined.

hotelier Accor Hotels deemed the timing to be right for Auckland to join the small and sophisticated group of SO/, a chain of just seven 5-star boutique hotels, which have had creative input from some of the world’s most creative fashion visionaries.

Christian Lacroix, the late Karl Lagerfeld, Viktor&Rolf and Kenzō Takada have all lent their unique styles to SO/ hotels in Bangkok, Singapore, Berlin and Mauritius. Now, in collaboration with Benny Castles of fashion house World, they have brought Auckland in to join their company.

“SO/ hotels and resorts are a playful mix of sophistication and the dynamic style of each locale,” explains Marilyn Chang, General Manager of design and technical services for Accor.

“We see each SO/ as an avant-garde masterpiece, highly creative, fashion-led and imaginatively inspired by an iconic, signature designer.”

While SO/ came to the party with its distinctive DNA, local interior design firm Space Studio and Castles were given the task to design and implement a vision specific to Auckland that would sit within those brand parameters.

“We’ve worked on a number of Accor brands,” says Vee Kessner of Space Studio, “but what makes SO/ different is the stronger narrative that is built around it. It’s about telling a story with a twist.”

In this case, Chang and the larger design team opted for a narrative centered around “the birth of an island”. According to Kessner, New Zealand’s status as a young island nation offered a fertile “connection between the active geology and the youthful innovative spirit of the country”.

MULTINATIONAL

Looking at both location and aspect, SO/ draws from two very distinct inspirations – the hotel’s immediate location on what was once the site of the Reserve Bank and its gold bullion holdings, and its greater surroundings, in a city built amongst a group of volcanoes.

Each of SO/ Auckland’s 130 rooms references the volcanic premise, with themes based around the three states of matter: vapour, liquid and solid. With glazing on all four sides of the building, rich, dark interior spaces are lifted by an abundance of natural light and overlaid with colourways alluding to these three states. Vapour rooms feature curved ceilings and lighter palettes, liquid rooms have shots of orange lava on details such as the headboards, and solid rooms have slate walls that run throughout.

In every room, the bathroom is open to view, which again speaks to the target market – a little brave and somewhat edgy – but the design response and implementation has cleverly ensured privacy from the outside world.

Traces of ‘gold’, predominantly in the form of brass and bronze, are cleverly interwoven throughout the scheme, as if brought up from the vaults themselves, which are now home to a wellness floor and meeting spaces below ground level.

Indeed, the former underground stronghold and its extremely thick concrete walls were perhaps one of the most challenging aspects in the repurposing of the building. The vast concrete columns which ascend the building interrupted a typical clean floor layout, and become drivers for the room design in many ways; the result is a somewhat organic asymmetry throughout.

The SO/ design team chose a restrained underlying

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(This spread) On the ground floor, the lobby, with the addition of Mixo bar, allows guests to relax on European furnishings. The O concrete rocking chair, designed by Marcel Wanders for Moooi, is a playful, ring-shaped seating option.

PRO

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We see each SO/ as an avant-garde masterpiece, highly creative, fashion-led and imaginatively inspired by an iconic, signature designer.â&#x20AC;?

Marilyn Chang

(This page) HI-SO bar boasts expansive views of Auckland's skyline. The neon light installation was designed by Benny Castles. (Facing page) Frosted glass in the bathrooms offers privacy.

“The [staff attire] collection needed to have that movement and personality – it had to say ‘come out and play’ .”

Benny Castles

material palette of stone, metals and natural finishes, which provided a solid base for the flamboyant spirit brought to the table by Castles.

Castles’ colourful and slightly irreverent stamp is evident throughout. The hotel’s emblem, as playful and bold is World fashion house itself, is a graphic representation of a volcanic crater, with a mesmerising quality about it. Its swirling nature is splattered around in the form of sculptural artwork on the walls, the pillows on the beds, and even the interiors of the wardrobes, promoting a fantasy-like, almost out-of-this-world experience.

Castles’ touch is also evident in the staff attire: a collection of evening-wear-influenced pieces that seem to be straight off the catwalk, with not a name badge in sight. “As we designed, we had a person in mind that we felt suited the look and feel of the hotel,” explains Castles. “The collection needed to have that movement and personality – it had to say ‘come out and play’.”

The result of this collaboration between hotel design specialists and a fashion designer is, to say the least, energetic.

As guests arrive at SO/ Auckland, the mood is one of play.

Conventional hotel norms are broken from the outset, with the traditional reception area giving way to a luxury bar fitted out with elegant, eye-catching and somewhat Alice in Wonderland pieces from Dutch design house Moooi. These

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include what is reported to be the world’s largest floor-toceiling chandelier and a couch that has been turned so that it is a vertical, dark, moody piece of furniture with burgundies and sparkle. Here, a mixologist or a tea expert will bring guests drinks while room cards are being prepared.

On the upper floors, the design flair continues unapologetically. The HI-SO rooftop bar, located on the 16th floor, includes large terraces offering spectacular views to Rangitoto, Waiheke and beyond. Volcanic-like rock forms the walls and parts of the bar here while Castles’ emblem, in resplendent neon, continues the geological theme.

One floor down is the Harbour Society restaurant, boasting Michelin-star French chef Marc de Passorio and taking in a lighter palette of cream and brown: light and airy with a touch of classic sophistication. At the time of writing, there are plans for a Club Signature, a large, members-only space.

“We are definitely looking to connect with the community,” says Chang. “SO/ is all about great service, fun and social interaction, and guests want to feel part of the city. But we also know they might want privacy and quiet so Club Signature will offer that sense of retreat and exclusivity.”

SO/ Auckland is certainly the vivid cocktail of luxury, sophistication and style that Accor promotes – “an audacious burst of local energy with an unmistakable, playful twist”.

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PROJECTS: B:Hive

PROJECT: B:Hive CLIENT: Paul Gunn LOCATION: The North Shore, Auckland DESIGN: BVN Australia/Jasmax PROJECT TYPE: Workplace FLOOR AREA: 11,000m2

On a good buzz As the final touches are put on its hospitality area, the B:Hive at Smales Farm on Aucklandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s North Shore is, by all accounts, a success story for its owners and its tenants.

Words Camille Khouri 43

PROJECTS: B:Hive

as the biggest purpose-built coworking facility in the Southern Hemisphere, the B:Hive covers 11,000m2 over five floors and can cater to businesses ranging in size from a single person to those with up to 250 employees.

Designed by BVN Australia and Jasmax, the offices are striking and playful in appearance, centring around an expansive atrium topped by a huge skylight, known as the shroud. The star of the show is an orange staircase that feels as though it belongs in a playground or water park; it spirals through the atrium, linking the different levels and providing a centrepiece for the open space. “The stair has a lot of charisma. It’s not shy,” says Jasmax lead architect for the project, Cameron Pollock. “It is the focus that most people gravitate to but it operates only in the context of the space as a whole, with the light that comes through that massive skylight and the planting around the base. The role that it’s playing – to connect and link that space vertically within the building – is what helps it resonate so well. That was one of the fundamental ideas for the whole project.”

TOUTED

“The stair has a lot of charisma. It’s not shy…”

Cameron Pollock, Jasmax lead architect The five floors have curvaceous edges around the atrium border that allow for interesting spatial arrangements. This aspect of the design was somewhat intuitive, says Pollock.

“The functionality of that space works in real terms, with furniture and spatial layouts for traffic flows and fire egress ways. There are all sorts of very nice vantage points that you can recognise within the space and be a part of. In terms of outlook and acoustic design and the mixing of the air through the building, these curves function better than a straight, rectangular shape would.”

For tenants, the building allows for a fluidity that suits the uncertainty of business. All going well, tenants are able to upsize their spaces to allow for more staff or, in times of decline, downsize, using the building’s flexible, customdesigned partitioning system. This process can take just an hour to action but there is a lot of behind-the-scenes planning that goes into making a change, explains Smales Farm CEO Paul Gunn. “If you move one wall, it obviously affects the office on the other side. So, we have it set up at the moment with two adjustment times per year where each tenant can make a call about whether or not they wish to expand or to contract.

(Previous spread) Details of the B:Hive’s spiral staircase. (Right) Made of roughly 34 tonnes of steel, the stairwell twirls effortlessly above a garden bed.

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PROJECTS: B:Hive

“… we see businesses crosspollinating off one another and providing services to each other.”

But, as businesses change organically throughout the year, often you will have one tenant who wants to get bigger and one that wants to get smaller, so we can do that outside of those pre-arranged times.”

Tenants can also play with density in office arrangements, adding more desks to, or taking desks away from, an existing space. “We have a charging table which sets out how the pricing regime adjusts up or down depending on how people increase or decrease their density,” says Gunn.

Paul Gunn, Smales Farm CEO The B:Hive offers two styles of accommodation for businesses: dedicated offices for more-established businesses of six or more people, and dedicated desks, which are for single operators or those who do not need enclosed office spaces. “In the dedicated desk community, we’ve had some great stories of people from separate businesses joining together in banks of desks and enjoying the collegiality and the social aspect of coming to work within a community, as opposed to working at home or in smaller office arrangements. In addition to that, we see businesses cross-pollinating off one another and providing services to each other,” says Gunn.

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(This page) Meeting rooms can be accessed on the ground floor. So, too, can food and retail stores. The Arbour – a leaf-lined hospitality venue conceptualised by Cheshire Architects and completed by Izzard Design – is attached to this floor.

(This page) Breakout spaces and designated zones in which to relax are welcomed benefits of the B:Hiveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coworking model. Other amenities include videoconferencing technology, an atrium that generates white noise, Angus Muir light installations and fully fitted kitchens.

(Top) The building, otherwise known as the Business Hive, is centred around an atrium, giving the impression of a vast amount of open space across all five floors. This is aided by ample natural light, which enters the atrium through a large skylight.

(Below) Concierge services are offered to tenants.

PROJECTS: B:Hive

(This page) The Goodside is B:Hive’s hospitality area serving the wider Smales Farm precinct.

GOODSIDE Up until the end of last year, the hospitality precinct, Goodside, was a construction site causing bother and noise at the entrance to the B:Hive. Now, it is a hive of activity in its own right. Tenants of the precinct include the BurgerFuel spin-off Shake Out, Grey Lynn institution Ripe Deli and bagel specialist Goodness Gracious, to name a few. Unlike at other similar precincts, visitors to Goodside can combine items from different restaurants or even eat their own packed lunches at the long black tables outside.

The design is outdoor-centric and reflects the history of the area, which was, of course, a farm, explains designer Paul Izzard. “The idea is to create a non-urban environment, bringing it back to the farm. It brings the idea of providence and authenticity into that hospitality precinct, with the greenery and timber and green arbours. It transports you somewhere else instead of feeling like you’re eating lunch in the office car park.”

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT The size and location of Smales Farm make it ripe for different styles of development. Plans are in the pipeline to build another building that plugs into the B:Hive, making it a larger hub. There is also an intent to create residential offerings, which would require a zoning change for the Farm – a process that is currently in its early stages.

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PROJECTS: B:Hive

PROJECT DETAILS

KEY MATERIALS

Project name: Smales Farm B:Hive Client: Smales Farm Management Design practice: BVN/Jasmax Design team: James Grose, Glenn Irwin, Cameron Pollock, Sally Campbell, James Davis Time schedule: Primary completion Dec 2017 Project size: 20,600m2

Paint: Resene Ceiling: Apex Cabinetry: Gartshore Light art: Angus Muir Street art: Railside Design Ltd Accoustic panelling: Autex Laminates: Formica Lighting: Simon James Kitchen tiling: The Tile People Internal walls – kitchens: Portugal Cork Tapware: Astra Walker Wood stain: Mirotone

(Above) Goodside hospitality area beside the B:Hive.

(Below) The exterior features clusters of chimney stacks that work to vent considerable quantities of air.

SE C T ION

Our friends at CoreNet are hosting a talk and tour of the B:Hive. Smales Farm’s CEO Paul Gunn and its director, Greg Smale, will be taking guests around this forward thinking co-working facility to explore technology, art facilities and hospitality.

B:Hive Smales Farm talk and tour Thursday, 28 March, 2019, 4pm, Auckland. $60, $30 for CoreNet members.

Register your attendance by emailing: Adrian@CoreNetglobal.org.nz

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Photography: Courtesy of B:Hive.

TOUR THIS PROJECT

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Get your free Resene Classics Collection chart from your Resene representative, Resene ColorShop or order online www.resene.co.nz/specifierorder

FORUM 03.2019

David Thulstrup: This Danish interior designer allows us to peek inside his blossoming portfolio of fit-outs. p.54.

Communal Spaces in the Digital Age: As the age of social media continues, paradoxically, to sever our social ties, we explore the spaces undoing this modern certitude. p.62.

Airports: The typology of these transitional places receives a necessary rethink. p.66.

(This spread) Both the interior and the structure of Peter Krasilnikoff’s three-storeyed home were fully remodelled. An atrium, filled with local flora and fitted with a black alder tree as its feature point, was added.

Screed concrete flooring can be found throughout.

David Thulstrup may be a Danish designer but he’s had a lot of outside influences. For one, an internship with starchitect Jean Nouvel led to a three-and-a-half-year fulltime position in the Frenchman’s Parisian studio. Nouvel’s trademark is the absence of one – famously, he has no signature style. Next, Thulstrup moved to New York City to work for Peter Marino, whose outspoken interiors for highfashion brands might leave some Scandinavian minimalists cowering in the corner. Thulstrup wasn’t thinking about personal tastes at that point; he was trying to learn from whom he considered to be the best. “They’re my two great heroes,” he says. “I learned so much from them. That knowledge gave me self-confidence and pride in what I do.

I took those attributes with me when I went home to start my own thing.”

Home was – and still is – Copenhagen. “Having a studio is a long journey – a winding path of self-improvement,” says Thulstrup, reflecting on the search for his own aesthetic. “You have a sense within you that tells you what’s right or wrong.” That sense, he says, develops over time, after a period of leaning on past references for inspiration.

Nowadays, he’s influenced by his surroundings as well as his staff – a team of 22 people without whom he “couldn’t do

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what I’m doing. I’m not a one-man show. Marino always said he was a chameleon. I feel like that too. I don’t want to be put in a box. It’s not that I do only raw wood and grey tones.

I experiment with a lot of things. And it’s also important to have input from clients. Of course, there are ways to make a project say ‘Studio David Thulstrup’ but I’d get bored if I did the same thing over and over again.”

Thulstrup’s breakthrough project was a house for Peter (Krasilnikoff, not Marino). This Peter is a photographer, a colleague from Thulstrup’s early days as a stylist, who wanted to transform an old garage in Copenhagen into a professional studio and private house. “It was my dream assignment,” says Thulstrup. “Not exactly a money-maker but it was my first residence and I was entrusted to come up with the right response to the plot of land.” The result, finished in 2015, is a sophisticated celebration of industrial materials. Peter’s House was strewn across Pinterest and design sites, thrusting Thulstrup into the spotlight. And now, Krasilnikoff has returned for the renovation of his beach house. “I feel privileged that many of my clients come back.

You build up trust with them, particularly when designing their personal residences. Communication is important.”

A sensitive juxtaposition of materials features heavily in Thulstrup’s commercial projects as well. Blow beauty salon, for instance, pairs marble with plywood in a neutral scheme with pops of yellow. At the time (2013), Blow was seen to be rather daring, opting for industrial chic over opulence. It was part of a new, pared-down wave of luxury that infiltrated interior design the world over. And Thulstrup has continued to ride the wave with a blossoming portfolio full of unpretentious yet material-rich spaces: everything from a gallery-style flower shop to a fashion-forward showroom-cum-office. Recently, the J.Lindeberg flagship in Stockholm represented a new step for

FORUM

“If I’m sleeping in Paris I don’t want to feel as though I’m in LA… There are ways to create that unique feeling through furniture and colours.”

David Thulstrup

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Thulstrup has continued to ride the wave with a blossoming portfolio full of unpretentious yet material-rich spaces...

(Opposite page) Nomaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s custommade chairs have wood-turned frames.

(This page) The private dining hall is clad in Douglas fir. Lamp pendants, designed by Jonas Edvard, are made of compressed seaweed and hang above an eight-metre-long oak table.

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(Above) David Thulstrup.

(Above) Platane wood walls punctuate Swedish clothing brand J.Lindeberg’s otherwise futuristic flagship store in Stockholm.

(Below) Straightlined panels continue the interior’s sense of pared-back luxury.

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the studio in terms of retail. “It’s a big brand and we feel we’ve succeeded in making something great,” says Thulstrup of his concept. Inspired by the J.Lindeberg logo, pop art and 1970s sporty motifs, the interior is conceived more like a museum: flexible enough to host events and other happenings.

The list of Thulstrup’s big moments wouldn’t be complete without Noma. Last year, the Copenhagen institution – ranked as the world’s best restaurant on four occasions – established a new home. More residential than restaurant in appearance, the project explores a contemporary Scandinavian aesthetic, devoid of Nordic clichés.

What, if anything, connects the designer’s growing portfolio? “The obvious common theme is materiality,” he says. “Every wall is treated.” Diving deeper, he describes a certain “accessibility and volume” – the way the spaces make you feel. “There’s a physical sense of well-being when you enter – of being greeted. And different sizes, heights, materials and masses interact to evoke accessibility and groundedness.” He says that, although J.Lindeberg may look a bit flashy on film, for instance, the space’s smaller areas make customers feel safe and nurtured.

While the designer currently has a number of other retail projects on the go, as well as residences, hospitality venues and products, he’s keen to be more involved in the hotel industry.

“It’s no secret that the world is becoming closer and more connected. Those who travel want to feel a sense of place when they arrive. If I’m sleeping in Paris, for example, I don’t want to feel as though I’m in LA. I think we’ll stop seeing big hotel chains rolling out massive concepts. There are ways to create that unique feeling through furniture and colours. Not in a stereotypical way but by sourcing local products and working with local manufacturers. I also want to work with things that have a longer liveability – that’s very interesting to me.”

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Tracey Ingram explores a few interiors that highlight the importance of designing communal spaces in the age of social media.

FORUM

Photography: Patrick Bingham-Hall.

(These pages) Designed by Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl, the unfurling terraces of the Kampung Admiralty, with plants overflowing from each level, create a community park for the 11 housing blocks. To help facilitate further socialising, ‘buddy benches’ encourage people to sit next to one another.

We’ve reached a social stalemate. Thanks to those little devices we hold in the palms of our hands – or those like the one I’m typing on right now – we’re more connected than ever before. We rely on the likes of Facebook to help us keep up to date with our ‘friends’, while apps such as Happn hook us up with strangers who’ve crossed our paths – people we may never have otherwise met.

But, paradoxically, we’re apparently lonelier than we ever were – and the platforms we use to associate with one another may be part of the problem. ‘Is Social Media Making You Lonely?’, a 2018 article published by Psychology Today, references a survey by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine exploring social-media patterns. The study found that “individuals who spend more time on social media every day felt lonelier than those who spent less time engaged in social media. Additionally, those who spent more time on social media in a given week felt more isolated than those who checked their social media less.”

Loneliness is associated with an alarming list of health issues, including a drastically increased risk of heart disease and stroke. In fact, researchers at Brigham Young University concluded that loneliness is just as likely as is smoking to lead to early death. The epidemic is more extreme in the elderly population: a vulnerable group that often struggles with social segregation. It’s this demographic that WOHA architectural practice addresses in Singapore’s Kampung Admiralty. The complex goes beyond the brief of typical senior-citizen housing, featuring not only apartments but also a medical centre,

(Left) The complex is intended to be well-integrated across its three strata.

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(Left) The Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building at Princeton University.

(Below) The Green Square Library, located in Sydney’s inner-south, houses more than 40,000 books, CDs and DVDs, as well as a Chinese collection.

(Above) A stairway inside the Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics at Princeton University.

a pharmacy, retail, F&B establishments, a public park and plaza, an outdoor gym, a children’s playground and an urban farm. There’s also onsite care for both seniors and children.

“Kampung Admiralty is designed to draw in the whole neighbourhood – to make a lively space for people of all ages and enable connection and inter-generational bonding,” says WOHA co-founder Richard Hassell. “And to help seniors feel integrated into their community, rather than isolated and alienated, the development is conveniently connected to public transport.”

Despite the expanse of the complex, which was named World Building of the Year at the 2018 World Architecture Festival, WOHA designed it with the idea of a village in mind. It’s an approach the studio also employed for SkyVille @ Dawson, a public-housing project completed in 2015. The Singapore building boasts a whopping 960 apartments but “doesn’t feel that huge at all,” says Hassell. “It’s broken down into clusters of 80 households, like small villages in the sky.

Within 80 households, the chances are that you’ll find at least one person with a similar hobby – or perhaps kids the same ages as yours.”

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The challenge of connecting a community is perhaps even greater in schools and universities, since much of our learning now happens with the aid of digital devices. Four years ago, already, Stuff reported on a survey that counted approximately one device per student in schools. There are many questions surrounding the growing reliance on technology. A few years ago, The Guardian published findings by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claiming students banned from using laptops or digital devices in lectures and seminars performed better in exams than did those with free access to computers and the internet.

Toronto-based KPMB Architects is taking the topic to heart, as illustrated by a number of recent projects in the US. The firm reduces rigidity in its institutional designs, suggesting that informality and congeniality go hand in hand. KPMB’s scheme for a Princeton University building, for example, features living room-style seating, while the Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania includes a twostoreyed lounge for students, faculty and visitors. The project in Pennsylvania involved the renovation of the historic West

Thanks to those little devices we hold in the palms of our hands… we’re more connected than ever before… But, paradoxically, we’re apparently lonelier than we ever were…

Photography: Princeton –Ronaldo Pearlman. Green Square Library – Adrien Williams.

Philadelphia Title and Trust Company building from the late 1920s, and a new addition to the north of the same area.

The Perelman Center features an aperture-rich façade to attract passers-by. “The transparency of the base connects the heart of the new academic community with public life, while the upper levels afford dramatic views to the city and campus skylines,” says Shirley Blumberg, partner-incharge for KPMB Architects. “The resonant conversation between old and new creates interconnectivity and spaces for collaboration and a vibrant animated ground floor for undergraduate student services.”

The desire to facilitate face-to-face interactions to counteract our online-oriented social behaviour may explain the recent resurgence in public libraries. “Free communal spaces such as libraries cater to a wide variety of users and uses,” says Matthias Hollenstein, director of Sydney-based architecture and urban-design studio Stewart Hollenstein. “Everyone feels a sense of ownership.

This overlap has the potential to be a hotbed for social interactions, particularly incidental encounters that are at the heart of expanding one’s personal network.”

The firm’s design for Sydney’s Green Square Library and Plaza is, therefore, “designed to be intentionally informal,” says Hollenstein, who refers to the project as an “urban living room”: an extension of the locals’ homes. “This informality is intended to foster serendipitous observations and interactions between members of the community.” What’s surprising, though, is that the library portion is actually underground – not the typical location for a social catalyst. It’s the plaza above that pulls people in, their attention directed towards glazed rises or recesses that puncture the ground-level plane to offer glimpses of life within.

“The dilemma of designing for social interaction is trying to work out how to get strangers to sit or stand in closer proximity without them feeling uncomfortable,” says Hollenstein. For Green Square, the architects carefully considered the scale of the library’s spaces and furniture arrangements, hoping to encourage visitors to observe what’s going on nearby or plonk themselves down next to one another – all while making each of them feel as though they have their own space. “Therein lies the ergonomic and anthropological challenge.”

(Above) A six-storeyed tower encased in glass rises up from the middle of Sydney’s Green Square plaza. On the fourth floor, a baby grand piano can be played by members of the public, as can a range of guitars.

Books from the library can be enjoyed in the tower’s high-ceilinged reading room on a floor below.

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Urban laboratories: What we can learn from airports

If you want to know about the cities of the future, you might want to take a closer look at airports. Despite being one of the youngest architectural typologies, airports are some of the few buildings with the size, complexity and traffic to emulate cities. At airports, systemic urban conditions are magnified, making them interesting case studies for urban design.

It isn’t easy to keep up with the enormous demand for air travel. The pace of change often makes airport projects obsolete shortly after they are built. Airport architects are challenged to design buildings with the highest operational performance standards, while also creating seamless threshold experiences for the modern traveller. Aerial Futures, a US-based non-profit organisation exploring innovation in the architecture of flight, technology and the broader urban mobility ecosystem, asked some

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of the world’s leading designers what we can learn from aviation infrastructure and apply to similar, large-scale urban environments. Here are some of the learnings:

Cultural gateways Airports have been widely criticised as nonplaces that look the same wherever they might be. However, airports today are each designed to invoke a sense of place, reflecting the local culture and community. Denver International Airport was one of the world’s first airports to be designed as a symbol for its city and the region. Its sculptural roof line evokes the snowcapped Rocky Mountains, as well as the tepees of Native Americans indigenous to the area.

“Many travellers’ first impression of a place is at the airport, when they step off the aircraft and wait for their luggage. Airports today are cultural

gateways, as much as they are transportation facilities,” says Curtis Fentress, principal of Fentress Architects. “A local design is crucial for people to know they’ve arrived somewhere special. It’s also critical for locals to embrace their airport and feel that it respects their culture and identity. Though the architecture must comply with contemporary international standards, it also should adopt a local vernacular and reflect the spirit of the people.”

Integrated mobility design Airports are at the forefront of the third transportation revolution, embracing new paradigms in smart technologies, digital mobility and the sharing economy. “Rapid changes of lifestyle and technology require airport design to forecast and respond to future trends and challenges. Making the

Renders above: Courtesy of Safdie Architects.

As the improvements to Auckland International Airport and its surrounds come closer to completion, the executive director of Aerial Futures, Andrés Ramirez, ponders the significance of this typology.

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Photography: Top right by Lawrence Anderson and above by Astula Inc., courtesy of Fentress Architects.

(Opposite page) Safdie Architects’ proposed new design for Jewel Changi Airport, based on a torus.

(Above and left) Tom Bradley International Terminal, designed

by Fentress Architects.

impossible possible with a more seamless and on-demand passenger experience,” says Samantha Flores, architect at Corgan and Director of Hugo, the firm’s research incubator.

“At Hugo, we’re testing replicable innovations, from reconfiguring the curbside for Uber’s flying taxies to integrating biometric security screening and ubiquitous connectivity through the Internet of Things. These explorations anticipate the future of urban mobility, shifts in consumer behavior, and the extrapolation of emerging technologies to create a more humancentred design.”

Environmental design As cities densify, larger buildings are deprived of sunlight and nature. Airports aren’t traditionally known for their greenery but designers are successfully introducing interior gardens and landscapes that help passengers to relax. Jaron Lubin, principal at Safdie Architects, led the design team consortium for Singapore’s newest airport addition. “At Jewel Changi Airport, we challenged the conventional model of airport design and brought the public

realm into direct contact with nature at the heart of the terminals. Jewel Changi Airport includes a public garden and the world’s largest indoor waterfall, surrounded by a vibrant marketplace.” The project is an attraction to both travellers and local Singaporeans, while enhancing airport operations for smooth transitions to and from Changi.

The third space Airports are no longer defined exclusively by air travel; they are destinations in themselves.

Hundreds of airports are developing sophisticated programmes for business, leisure and entertainment. Antoinette Nassopoulos Erickson, senior partner at Foster + Partners, describes airports as spaces of enormous potential for social and cultural life. “In the future, we will see airports evolving to become cleaner and more sustainable multimodal transportation hubs. Combining easy connectivity with great places to work, live and play, they will transform into ‘mixed-use developments’ — social spaces that are vibrant urban centres in their own right.”

Curated experiences Travellers want memorable experiences: to be engaged and entertained, and discover spaces they feel connect to their lifestyles. Steve Dumas of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) studies how customers respond to retail environments. He sees airport retail design as highly localised and curated. “For the renovation of T1 at LAX, LA’s Asian influences of origami and the bento box were combined with the surprise and delight sensibility of Southwest Airlines. This provided a layer of experiences for passengers to explore. At the Tom Bradley International Terminal, the grand spaces of the terminal were treated as if they were outdoors, creating plazas, streets and terraces with alfresco restaurants.”

Constructed approaches As major mobility hubs, airports are in operation 24/7. HOK, the architectural firm responsible for major airport redevelopment projects like LaGuardia, has adopted an innovative phase-by-phase approach, in which the old building is incrementally removed and replaced by newer facilities — all with zero operational downtime. “Phasing the construction of these projects can expedite the process and allow the team to achieve its design goals while limiting disruption to passengers and operators,” says Robert Chicas, HOK’s director of Aviation.

Aviation infrastructure is a test bed for what’s possible, connected, as it is, to all elements of life. Aviation interacts with the lives of cities, and of local and global cultures, as well as the broader mobility ecosystem.

Andrés Ramirez is executive director of Aerial Futures, a cultural platform and expert network that explores the future of aviation, technology and urban mobility. aerialfutures.org

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FORUM (This page) Commercial Bay’s tower, with dedicated office and retail space, is scheduled to be completed this year. (Right) Scott Pritchard.

Developer focus Federico Monsalve sat down with Scott Pritchard, CEO of Precinct Properties, to talk about the industry and the upcoming Commercial Bay project.

Interior: How does a company like yours prepare for big changes in retail? The digital world, for example, is changing it entirely.

How do you prepare for what that means for bricks and mortar?

Scott Pritchard: If you look closely at some of the metrics, particularly in gateway cities, which is definitely what Auckland has become, city centre retail is continuing to perform strongly and you see that at a really fundamental level.

The pedestrian counts that are taken are continuing to grow week on week. That drives better outcomes for retailers. We’re seeing good demand for city centre retail, from both retailers and shoppers.

Another industry that’s changing in Auckland is the construction industry – there’s been pressure put onto it. What do you think are some of the biggest pressures that are making a change? How does a company like Precinct go about making sure that those pressures are eased?

There is an enormous amount of activity going on – really quite unprecedented in terms of the scale of it – and there’s a shallow pool of talented, experienced and capable builders in New Zealand. What we’re lacking in New Zealand is those personnel that are experienced in highly complex projects, which is what Commercial Bay is – it’s two subterranean rail tunnels, a subterranean basement car parking,

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a retail centre and a 40-levelled tower. Both tunnels are integrated into an existing tower.

That hasn’t happened before in New Zealand, so we do rely on very capable people to be able to construct it in a way that’s safe and has a high quality standard.

Your company recently took on full ownership of local co-working company Generator. This comes at a time when WeWork is actively looking for property here, and BizDojo and Regus have combined forces under IWG… is there going to be a tipping point where there are suddenly too many co-working spaces?

Rather than it being too many of these kinds of entity, it’s more a question of how much of a typical office is offered in a co-working space, because it’s typically not contracted for a long period of time and offers a lot of flexibility.

In more mature markets, like London, we’re seeing eight to 10 per cent of the market in coworking space. In Auckland, we’re probably, in reality, running at two per cent. You haven’t seen the amount of growth on a relative basis to what you would have seen in New York or in London. It will happen but it’s happening in a slightly more methodical way. At this stage, there is a strong demand for this type of space.

We’re interested in it because it’s a sort of bread and butter for us, and it means our model is evolving slightly.

You are a city centre company. What are your responsibilities that you think are fairly unique to being within that space?

We work closely with the Council around streetscapes. It’s good to see catalysts like the development of Commercial Bay trigger a whole bunch of other works that the Council is doing in and around our site — along Quay Street, Lower Queen Street, Lower Albert Street. We’re also interested in helping the city, and we support the Auckland City Mission and Wellington City Mission really quite significantly. Precinct has just made a pretty significant commitment to HomeGround, which is the Auckland City Mission’s development on Hobson Street; it is going to be fantastic for the city. We’re big supporters of helping people who are on the streets in the city, and really trying to encourage them into a better future. That sits well with us, in terms of being an inner-city resident and supporting those people we see on the streets pretty regularly.

Is there anything you think could, potentially, be disruptive in your industry?

Co-working is bringing that disruption and we’re seeing that play out in the traditional office market. I really don’t think working from home will be what people thought it might be 10 years ago. People have figured out that they quite like being around other people. That’s why city centres, generally, are performing.

If you look around at any city centre globally, both from an economic contribution and its GDP performance, you’ll see it generally outperforms the balance of the region. That’s the benefit of agglomeration.

There’s a lot of change going on in the way that government agencies cohabit within a space.

Did you have to work with those processes through the government itself to figure out how the building would be designed?

The Crown went through its own process in terms of determining what sort of workspace it wanted. What it came up with was a very standardised approach as to how all government entities would work, down to space requirements, in terms of one person per ‘x’ amount of space, and the type of desking system. Now that we’ve done it a few times, we can engage more. As a taxpayer, I think that what the government has done has been positive, because I think there was a lot of space that perhaps was not as well utilised as it should have been. Like all of us, it’s still learning. You can’t take a cookie cutter approach to 100 per cent of its space but I think taking it to a majority makes sense; it’s made good gains.

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(Clockwise from far left) Interior designer Rufus Knight, exhibitors Ane Tonga and Emma Ng, and Objectspace director Kim Paton.

Interiors at an exhibition Auckland’s Objectspace gallery is set to open The Room, a daring exhibition of commissioned, residential interior installations designed by four top New Zealand designers, curators and artists. Federico Monsalve spoke to its two curators, Kim Paton and Rufus Knight, about the impetus for the show.

How did the idea for the show originate?

Kim Paton (KP): It was absolutely born from that deep love of mine for the diorama or staged scene. [In dioramas], there is often a lovely fusion between fact and fiction – this idea of trying to replicate something that existed in the world. I love that kind of strange, faux interior you might see at a trade fair or design show.

It was also wanting to develop a design and exhibition strategy where we were able to work in a group context and have four different voices feeding into something. Quickly, we realised that a domestic scene or interior was a good anchor point for scale. At the same time, there could be this great conversation between design, architecture and the applied arts.

Rufus Knight (RK): What enthralled us about the exhibition was that we could explore ideas that we may not be able to explore. It is a selfdriven brief but it has been guided by Kim and the other exhibitors. That has given us breathing space in a new context. We have had experience

with trade shows – Salone del Mobile, ICFF and the Venice Biennale – each of which has a very commercial sensibility. It is interesting taking a step back and saying: “What if you had four artists do four stands at the Biennale? What would they do?” You take a fair like FIAC in France and, rather than having a booth from a gallery, what if the booth were created by the artist? What kind of environment would it be?

How did you come about the other people who were involved in the project?

KP: What is reflected in the group is that we’re looking at working with different Pasifika and migrant communities, and spending time inside homes we previously have never been in. What you realise is that there is nothing quite like it – going into someone’s home and realising that you might instantly be transformed somewhere else. You realise the priorities around culture and the different ways that humans interact.

There is a lot of detail we are anchoring in right now. In terms of each curator coming to the

space, there was no requirement that it look like anything in particular. For two of the rooms, both Knight Associates and Justine Olsen are actually commissioning Karl Fritsch, the amazing New Zealand jeweller. We are ending up with site-specific installation responses.

RK: Meanwhile, the other two have more of a diorama approach, where you are viewing through apertures or you are viewing objects within a space.

KP: You circle the perimeter to come in and out but they are all linked.

Rufus, tell us about your own space.

RK: We are looking at quite an immersive experience within our quadrant. It will probably be strongly material-focused. The rationale from where we have come is that the domestic architecture and design markets create an incredible amount of waste and by-product.

How can we re-purpose elements or parts of that, or specific materials from that process, and transpose them into the gallery context? How can we take something that is a by-product or a waste product or even a commonplace building material, and contextualise that into something that has an element of craft?

So, something sculptural?

RK: Sculptural without being a sculpture.

We are coming at it from a very immersive approach. I think that is how we work and how we think, and that is probably a real point of difference from the other exhibitors in the room.

We are thinking spatially all the time. We think more about the constraints of the space rather than which objects are going in the space – that, for us, comes much later in the design phase.

In the more conceptual phase, it is more about how we treat the whole thing.

Were there any connecting threads or narratives that popped up and you weren’t expecting?

KP: I was surprised at the lack of objects but that is the delightful outcome. There is something very contained about it, even though we don’t know the dimensions exactly yet. You have this very structured amount of space to work with.

The desire to respond to that in an architectural or spatial way makes great sense.

The Room will run from 5 April to 19 May 2019 at Objectspace, 13 Rose Road, Ponsonby, Auckland.

For more information, visit objectspace.org.nz

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FORUM: in:situ

Speaking in three dimensions in:situ, the New Zealand Institute of Architect’s biennial conference, took place at Auckland’s Spark Arena in February.

We chatted to some of its guest speakers.

Interviewers: Melanie McDaid and Federico Monsalve For full versions of these interviews, visit architecturenow.co.nz

Betsy Williamson Canadian architect Betsy Williamson, co-founder of Williamson Williamson (WWInc), is an enthusiastic proponent of high-quality design that is rooted in detail, clarity and creative solutions, and balanced by focused project management.

Welcome to Auckland. What has kept you busy so far?

I arrived yesterday and was directed to Queen Street, first of all. I was immediately drawn off to the side into the laneways, the smaller shops and arcades, and then into the parks and the connective tissue in between some of these places. Secondly, the waterfront and the red fence. I sit on the Waterfront Toronto Design Review Panel where we look at aspects of design excellence and quality of public spaces and the community ownership of the waterfront. So, as I was walking into [Spark] Arena this morning, I was speaking to my guide about what the plan is for Auckland and how you can start to bring the city down to the water and actually develop a public infrastructure, as opposed to just a virtual infrastructure. There are ways to be able to carve out public areas, where you could actually make a continuous path for walkers, cyclists and scooters, and then have little parks or urban squares that kind of dip into it at opportune times to start to make people feel like they own the waterfront and that it is not just about commercial activity.

A number of WWInc projects address the design challenge of creating residential spaces for aging residents and their families. Why is this important to you and architecture?

My generation is called ‘the sandwich generation’ – when you’re in between raising children and taking care of your parents. The

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huge wave of baby boomers that are now aging is something that the world has to deal with. That, coupled with the inability of a lot of young families to afford singlefamily homes in Toronto, has meant we have lots of people coming to us and saying, “Well, how can we do this living together so that, as a young family, we can afford to live in the city and, at the same time, take care of our parents?”

The system that takes care of the elderly is based around the medical and hospitalisation aspects of care. And I think the system is radically the wrong system.

Why can’t the home actually be part of this system, keeping people at home longer, keeping them around their families and friends?

Why do you think superior-quality design is a critical consideration for the development of cities?

I think you can break it down into a few aspects. One really easy answer is that high-quality design often has a high-quality material presence, meaning that you can do things cheaply or you can do things that bring better value but are slightly more expensive. Simply put, are we making this out of something that isn’t going to look like junk in five years? So, if it has to be something that lasts 50 years, bringing really long-lasting and durable materiality, which can withstand weathering in a city like ours, is really important. Every place has its own version of that.

There’s also the aspect of a high-quality public realm, which translates into understanding what a really excellent urban space can look and feel like. This means building parks and urban infrastructures that aren’t navel-gazing and just turning

(Above) Betsy Williamson at the in:situ conference in Auckland.

in on themselves to be insular. They need to connect with their neighbours, spatially or materially, either by being the same or by being different. Great spaces tend to be magnets for people and communities.

What are some of the key urban challenges Toronto is experiencing at the moment? How do you think architecture/ design can help?

Housing affordability and transit: these are inseparable ideas.

The cost of construction for our private clients can make projects untenable because there’s so much development that is absorbing the trades. Trades can cherrypick projects and the cost of their services is really, really high.

Building the right kind of density, which is increasing density in our low-density areas, is this huge fabric of single-family homes. That single-family home is as much Toronto as are the high-rises downtown.

The right density should be coupled with effective and broader transit opportunities to get the people from those densified areas to where they live, work and socialise.

FORUM: in:situ

Christopher Hawthorne Christopher Hawthorne is chief design officer for the city of Los Angeles and the former architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times.

This is your second visit to New Zealand.

Have you had time to form an opinion about our local architectural stock?

No, far from it. I was here two years ago to take part in this same conference and I have certainly been struck by how much more construction is happening. It seems as busy here as it is in Los Angeles at the moment. At a breakfast talk that I gave here this morning for some local architects, it was interesting to hear how similar some of the political debates are around transportation and the densification of residential architecture.

Let’s talk about strategies for community building while densifying a city. Is there anything you have learned about how to make sure that residential silos are not being created?

It was very clear to me that, in the LA context, we needed to redesign the public engagement process and get a broader cross-section of constituent or electoral feeling in terms of a ballot measure. We have heard a very clear set of messages, arguably even mandates, from voters saying that they are interested in investing in or even taxing themselves to pay for new forms of mobility, new housing that is paid for and built by the public sector, and new open space, particularly in parts of the city that are poor, which many parts are.

But, if you were to go to only a series of community meetings, even if they were all around the city, you wouldn’t necessarily hear that message. You might hear a message that is more about anxiety than about change and growth. Both of those opinions, of course, are valid but there is a big gap between them.

Part of the problem is that we have designed the process to favour a rather narrow crosssection of the public, which is to say there are public meetings on weekday evenings and they are only in English, and there is no day care. You get a demographic that tends to be older and whiter and wealthier.

Traditionally, cities are built through generations in an organic way. LA, like Auckland, has seen large portions of the city built from scratch, fast, to try and make up for years of residential under-

(Right and below) Christopher Hawthorne addresses guests at Spark Arena.

development. Is this sort of a segmented, Brasília moment? Don’t we need an ‘organic’ or natural evolution to create successful residential enclaves?

I think we have to be very vigilant about these projects and not let the market alone dictate the way that cities are built. When the mayor asked me if I would take this job, he told me he appreciated my review of LA Live next to the Staples Center, which was built as one of these instant districts with no sense of connection to the rest of the city.

I was encouraged that the mayor told me that he appreciated that review because it carried a lot of scepticism about that model.

There are some people who try to build in discussion of the unintended consequences of investments of this scale – whether that is displacement, gentrification or a perversion of cultural memory or history – and attempt to build something in a ‘just add water’ way.

Speaking of gentrification, you have been working on its connection to homelessness.

What have you learned to ameliorate that problem? How can you ensure that the least fortunate ones are not being pushed out from the inner cities?

If you chart the median rent in Los Angeles for an apartment and the homeless population, those two lines track almost identically. The problem starts with our systematic underbuilding of housing over the last 30 years. Part of the strategy is not just to build housing for those who are experiencing homelessness but to build in protections. These protections mean stronger rent control and various kinds of anti-displacement measures. We have to be thinking about both sides of that equation.

It is a fairly radical, anti-capitalist move, isn’t it?

Yeah, this is particularly progressive in the LA context because, unlike other big

American cities, we do not have a tradition of building and maintaining our own stock of public housing. On the contrary, we have a history of being sceptical about the idea of public housing. What led to a change of mayor was that a site had been cleared for a progressive public housing project designed

by Neutra & Alexander. The political elite decided that that mayor had to go because LA was not the kind of place that produced public housing. We have a long history of hostility to those efforts and it makes what we are doing now all the more difficult and all the more significant.

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FORUM: in:situ

(Left) Sadie Morgan during her speaking tour of Auckland.

Sadie Morgan Sadie Morgan is a founding director of London’s firm de Rijke Marsh Morgan Architects (dRMM) and has become an industry leader, playing an increasingly significant role as an advocate for design and architecture at the highest levels.

You grew up in Kent, England, in a cooperative community set up by your grandfather… that sounds interesting!

My grandfather started it in the late ’40s so it’s been going for a very long time. I recently moved to London but I still have a flat there.

We have very small apartments but, because there’s great outdoor space and a communal area, you don’t need huge amounts of space.

The mix of young and old people there brings with it a sense of being looked after; I feed the old lady who lives next to me every Sunday and my mum feeds me when I’m there. Funnily enough, that gives you huge independence.

You studied Interior Design at the Royal College of Art in London. How was that experience?

I love the fact that the beginning of my career was about interiors, because it’s about reuse – finding new ways of using old buildings.

It’s on a very human scale. As an interior designer, you have to think about buildings from the inside out.

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Straight from graduating, you founded dRMM with Alex de Rijke and Philip Marsh in 1995. Recently, dRMM won the RIBA 2017 Stirling Prize for Hastings Pier. Why do you think Hastings Pier captured the imagination of the RIBA Stirling Prize 2017 judges?

It was considered the best piece of architecture of the year but there wasn’t any architecture.

We were curators of a vision that, really, was about creating a piece of public space that could be adapted in use for different types of activity. I think the reason that it was such a compelling story is that the collective will of the community was to do something with a significant piece of their history.

A diverse mix of interesting people came together and chipped in, not only with their ideas but with their money. When you go there, it feels as though it has a spirit to it.

It might be because you’re in the middle of the sea and you can hear it in a way that you don’t anywhere else.

You play a significant role as an advocate for design and architecture. In 2017, you were named ‘New Londoner of the Year’ for your work in “championing the importance of design at the highest political level”. Can you talk about this work and why this work is important to you?

What I found is that people don’t understand what you mean by good design so I try to talk about it in a way that means it doesn’t feel elitist. It’s unprecedented that there is an architect on the National Infrastructure Commission. We come at things from a different perspective – we think laterally.

We’re very good at helping lay a path. But, the later we are brought on, the more difficult it is to affect that path in a positive way.

Design is increasingly becoming a big part of society and can contribute greatly to a successful society. Do you think the government is beginning to understand that design makes a difference in major infrastructure schemes?

When I’m feeling positive, the answer is yes. You’ll find a lot of politicians talking about building great places and building great communities. There’s a shifting of the language that talks about the need to design our built environment actively. Whether or not there’s a true understanding of what that means, I’m not sure. But, in a way, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is part of the narrative and we need to capture that momentum.

Is it important to you to contribute to the wider profession of architecture while also still running your practice?

Do you now limit your dRMM work while you are busy promoting the value of design at a high level?

The two feed into each other. I don’t spend as much time in practice as I used to but I’m more useful now. When you have a lot more knowledge and experience, you can do things quicker. I focus on what I can do well.

I had breast cancer two years ago and I keep saying that, if I stay alive, it is the best thing that ever happened to me because what it does do is completely refocus everything.

You were the fourth female president of the Architectural Association, an external examiner at the University of Westminster, London, and the University of Kent, and a professor at the University of Westminster, London. Do you think the current model of architectural education is successfully preparing young designers and architects for the reality of our job?

Not well enough but I have a very different view of education. As a profession, we need to get out more. We’re very focused on building buildings. It shouldn’t be unprecedented that I sit on the National Infrastructure Commission. We don’t seem to be putting together a coordinated vision.

We are pitched against each other so much that we’re not necessarily collegiate, and that’s to our detriment.

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Chip off the new block: Blockchain and the building sector What does blockchain mean for the construction sector? Will it change the ways in which we manage building assets? How will distribution and supply be altered by new digital technologies? Academics from the University of Auckland, Dermott McMeel and Alex Sims, have begun researching just such questions.

Federico Monsalve sat down with them to glean an early indication of their process and thinking.

How did your interest in the applications of blockchain to the construction industry begin?

Dermott McMeel (DM): It is partly because, before being a researcher, I was an architect.

My father was a builder and quite passionate about the sector in general. At the time, I was watching out for the Building Research Association of New Zealand’s funding prospectus. One of the things they were looking for people to research was blockchain; we applied with what we thought was an interesting idea and have received the funding.

Now, we are reaching out to the construction and design community.

To what end?

DM: We’re offering to host a series of workshops this year to help people understand blockchain. We do this by having them build a blockchain out of Lego; this might sound strange but it’s a really good way to see what this new technology lets us do. We are holding a workshop in April in Wellington. It starts off with everybody having some Lego and some trading cards. We trade these cards between us for Lego; as you trade, you stick the Lego together. This creates a physical record of how much of something was moving, where it moved to, where it came from and where the money went. People start, literally, to see the potential of blockchain through this visual,

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physical Lego record: not just of their money but of the stuff that is moving as well. Imagine your industry with that ability: How could you capitalise on that? How could it be improved through this sort of tracking? The second part of our project is creating technology demonstrators to explore some of these things with industry, rather than it being purely a speculative exercise. We have the ability to take that next step for people and organisations that really want to look at it seriously.

DM: One of the things that our colleagues, who developed this workshop format – at the Design Informatics research centre in Edinburgh – talk about is disruption. Uber and Airbnb entered sectors with new technology, their digital platforms, and radically disrupted those sectors. This radical disruption puts jobs at risk, and completely changes the economics of these sectors and where the money is located.

It can create risk for the existing players in an area that aren’t buying into it.

So, at its core, blockchain is about the standardisation of ledgers, which allows for transparency in the whole supply chain, documentation, etc. Is that right?

Alex Sims (AS): Yes, there can be transparency in the whole supply chain and the documentation, which is a great benefit. Although, if required, you can allow some people to see parts of it only; for example, you might not want everyone in the supply chain seeing how much each entity was paying for the goods. But blockchain does much more than that; it creates synergies and it unleashes potential. At the moment, it is hard to prove the provenance of goods because paperwork can be forged. Plus, payments, asset registries, customs clearances and insurance all operate on different systems. Blockchain would allow for all of these separate processes and more to be combined on the same system in real time.

Blockchain would allow for all these separate processes to be combined on the same system in real time.

Is it a disruptor or just another tool?

DM: History is a reasonably good teller of where these disruptors will pop up in a sector.

It causes a crisis of confidence. People call it a disruption. It is not necessarily a good thing because it means a lot of jobs – a lot of people – are uncertain about their futures.

We want to provide the starting point around what the steps are towards transforming the design and construction sector into this new type of economy. Our conversations are

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around this bigger picture. Blockchain is the catalyst. We aren’t trying to sell a technology but to understand a technology, and to help an industry understand a technology and the others that are there, and what they might mean for the future.

AS: It would be a mistake to see blockchain as a tool to slot into existing processes and make them quicker. A good analogy would be the replacement of horses with cars and other motorised vehicles. Not only did cars and other vehicles get people and goods to their destinations quicker, they transformed society.

Is there anywhere in the world that has already seen the benefits of blockchain in the construction industry?

DM: Alex has introduced me to Maersk shipping, which has done some work in tracking. Rather than waiting for stuff to turn up at their factories, people are more willing to start making steps so that, when things do arrive, everything is in order. Our colleagues at Design Informatics are doing a project with Oxfam around its fair trade process. It is not money or efficiency that Oxfam values; it’s the ability to say “That is fair trade” or “We can guarantee those people are being paid for it”. The organisation has been exploring that ability to guarantee the provenance of it.

AS: There are real-use cases. For example, IBM has its Food Trust blockchain and Walmart has now made its suppliers of leafy greens use the system because it took five to seven days to work out where something came from; now, it can be done in seconds. It also worked with IBM, sending shipments of oranges from China to Singapore. Normally, it takes five to seven days for all the paperwork: now, one second.

We all know that the cost of construction in New Zealand is too high. In the past, we have not had a good way of tracking things, such as the life cycle of a building.

The documents are not there or…?

AS: The documents may exist but, even if they exist, they are held by different people. In a properly designed blockchain system, you could, for example, know everything about the details of a building – even for one light switch.

Say you had an electrician and found out they didn’t have the right qualifications. You can immediately see the switches that he or she installed and, therefore, avoid having to replace all of them. At the moment, we can’t do that.

DM: There’ve been a few high-profile cases in the New Zealand news about civil engineering

works where the quality of concrete and steel was found to be less than what was expected.

This requires a big retro-fit process, which is expensive and time consuming, and our trust in that company is shaken. Being able to have processes in place to verify that these things are happening as they should – and the transparency that comes with that – is one of the potential benefits.

There was an opinion article in Wired recently where the author [Bruce Schneier] essentially said public blockchains are unnecessary; for example, in currency, it takes the trust that we had in banks and places it in digital-wallet makers. Is it like changing one focal point of power for another?

DM: I read the article and he does make some very good points: There are a lot of blockchain evangelists who make it seem to be magical and claim that is going to solve virtually all of the world’s problems. So, it’s important to have these voices from the technology experts reminding us it’s a very new technology and has limits we need to understand. I heard an interesting story recently about a company trying to sell another company a blockchain system. Some rather savvy person said, “Well, talk me through a day in the life of our business with blockchain. How is it better?”

And he couldn’t. There are a lot of people trying to jump onto it. While the tech experts work on the technological challenges, we want to be helping people understand why and how blockchain is different from what went before, and helping them figure out if or how it presents new opportunities for the ways they do business. Like Uber and Airbnb, this is all part of this shift towards platform economies.

AS: If you want something radical to think about (we will not be doing this), you can start to have things that own cryptocurrency wallets and can act for themselves. You might have a building that has its own cryptocurrency wallet and solar panels. It could start trading power with neighbouring buildings in a mini grid. And, if necessary, it could access spot prices from different power companies.

DM: It is a totally different way of thinking about how we utilise those infrastructures.

But, if all of that is on a system that has its own wallet of money to start to spend, it changes the game completely. We like to encourage people to think about that. What does your business look like in 10 to 20 years under the influence of these technologies?

It eliminates a lot of middlemen, doesn’t it?

DM: There’s a long history of automation not reducing employment overall. Uber is a very good example of how convenience increases for us, the consumer. For the drivers, however, there’s more uncertainty in their employment and when they might get jobs or what those jobs might be. What interests us is how we understand this – what we don’t want and what we want managed better.

Ultimately, we don’t want an apocalyptic shift in quality of life for people in the construction industry. But it will happen if, arguably, like the taxi industries, we say we are fine because it is not something that is going to affect us. These things do affect businesses and we want to help industries look at how they can start to move forward in that process.

Dermott McMeel i s a lecturer and researcher in Design and Digital Media (Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries, The University of Auckland).

Alex Sims is an associate professor in the Department of Commercial Law (Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Auckland).

BLOCKCHAIN According to the Oxford Dictionary, blockchain is “a digital ledger in which transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are recorded chronologically and publicly”.

It is, of course, much more than that. It’s a way of distributing incorruptible digital information – a ‘block’ or ‘nugget’ of data or intelligence – from one person to another within a network.

This information is then stored in a database that is, in essence, a chain made up of shared information. Developed by Satoshi Nakamoto, a famous pseudonym, it is the foundation on which a new world of digital cross-sharing rests. It comes as a surprise to some (and less of a surprise to others) that it has the potential to be a pillar – if not the sole pillar – of shared, secure information across industries.

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INTERFACE X INTERIOR

CLIMATE CHANGE: ACTION FROM THE GROUND UP Children around the globe are following the lead of 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg by striking from school to prompt their governments to make radical responses to climate change. But what would a radical response look like and what is needed to combat the changes we are now facing as the earth heats up?

THE MOST CONCISE WAY TO SLOW or reduce climbing temperatures is to minimise your carbon footprint, and an important way this can be done is through careful and considered building methods. Emissions from the construction industry in New Zealand rose 43 per cent between 1990 and 2015. Now, they make up 17 per cent of all CO2 emissions. The construction industry can play a large part in reducing this problem.

The uptake of home-owners designing their homes to meet Passive House or Homestar ratings is climbing. This means there are lower levels of carbon emission from electricity use and chemicals in materials used for building, but a large amount of emissions still come from factories producing materials for construction and fit-outs, as well as from waste when those materials come to the ends of their lives.

One company taking the problem seriously is global commercial flooring company Interface, which, over the past 20 years, has been moving towards significantly

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reducing its carbon footprint and restoring the environment through an ambitious commitment called Climate Take Back.

This comprises four pillars: Live Zero by doing business in ways that give back whatever is taken from the earth; reframe carbon as a resource, not an enemy, in order to Love Carbon; inspire the industry to transform into a force for climate progress and Lead Industrial Re-revolution; and support the earth’s natural ability to regulate the climate (Let Nature Cool).

Since 1994, Interface has transformed from a smokestack factory to a zero-emissions plant with sustainable production methods. It is working towards an ambitious goal beyond 2020 to create a factory that actually gives back to its site and runs like a natural ecosystem.

This is the aim of Interface’s pilot programme, Factory as a Forest, which looks to go beyond doing less harm and actively do more good.

Interface also explores raw materials that use waste carbon or sequester carbon to make products. Programmes like the Net-Works

initiative, which sources material for carpet tiles from discarded fishing nets, show what can be accomplished when new thinking is applied to materials sourcing. Not only do the old nets have new lives, the villagers who collect them enjoy a cleaner environment and a new measure of economic independence. Interface has transformed from a company built on oil to one built on renewable energy. As an original funder of Project Drawdown, Interface supports technological, ecological and social solutions to bring about the reversal of global warming.

All Interface’s products, available anywhere in the world, are now carbon neutral. Any extra cost of making them this way is not transferred to the consumer. They are made using 100 per cent renewable energy for electricity in Australia. New materials will be a combination of bio-based and recycled and with reduced 91 per cent waste to landfill. Interface’s ReEntry™ programme recycles old carpets in its manufacturing, thus creating a product that contributes to the circular economy. Any such

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ANDREW EAGLES CEO, New Zealand Green Building Council We caught up with the New Zealand Green Building Council’s CEO, Andrew Eagles, to check in on the state of carbon neutral construction in New Zealand.

Are there any new developments for those wanting to create carbon neutral buildings locally?

Yes, the New Zealand Green Building Council has developed a tool for tracking carbon for any existing building. This is due for release soon.

It will enable certification through Green Star Performance or NABERSNZ (the New Zealand adaptation of the National Australian Built Environment Rating System). Watch this space!

It’s an indicator that there are far more tenants and developers asking about carbon reduction in building projects.

How will people achieve that standard?

People will need to use the NABERSNZ certification route or the Green Star performance certification route. Then the goal is to reduce your emissions to a very low level and offset what you do generate.

In terms of products and materials, we are

new materials reduce the company’s reliance on oil.

The whole product life cycle, including transport and customer use, are also taken into account in the calculation of the product’s emissions, and any residual carbon is offset by a variety of funds that support the protection of natural habitats and improve the lives of communities impacted by climate change and deforestation.

Climate Take Back™, invites other companies to join them as they commit to running their business in a way that is restorative to the planet and creates a climate fit for life. Surprisingly, this also involves seeing carbon as an opportunity that can be used to create products, as opposed to seeing it as a challenge. This has instigated the design of a carpet tile that utilises carbon and stores it away, just as a tree does.

Emissions from the company’s global factories have dropped dramatically, with a greenhouse gas reduction of 96 per cent and a 66 per cent reduction in the carbon footprint of the manufacturing process.

The company is poised to meet its goal of eliminating any negative impact on the environment by 2020.

seeing more people wanting to do better in Green Star, and that means searching for more credits and using better-performing products.

We’re seeing a really big rise in the use of the circular economy. Companies like Interface, with a focus on taking back carpets and using recycled materials, are really good to see. Some councils are also starting to look more seriously at how they can reduce construction and demolition waste going to landfill.

Are there any specific examples of companies or projects doing this well in New Zealand?

Auckland Council’s HQ at 135 Albert Street targeted and achieved a 6 Green Star Interiors rating. As a result, they needed to divert 80 per cent of waste away from landfill. They reused diffusers, wiring and aluminium trunking.

That was nine tonnes of material diverted.

They also reused the glass partitions and the Lundia shelving.

They worked in collaboration with EcoMatters and Global Action Plan Oceania and took an inventory of insulation, bookshelves, cupboards, furniture and hot water cylinders. These were provided at a small percentage of cost to other

parties. For instance, the Kaitaia Community Group gained a lot of furniture for its offices.

The ceiling tiles came in at 109 tonnes and, because they had certainty that there was such a big quantity, a company called Envirofert, along with Green Gorilla, invested in a new plant capable of a higher recycling yield to cope with this load. What that’s saying is the more companies divert material from landfill when they build or fit out, the more the firms that recycle and reuse materials will get better at it.

Do you think we are moving quickly enough compared to the rest of the world with our eco building methods?

I think the question is “Are we moving fast enough?” Full stop. And the answer is “No”.

For instance, the government, the biggest user of office buildings in New Zealand, is not doing Green Star, so all the waste from government buildings and projects is probably going to landfill. The rest of the world is moving slowly as well. Saying that, in the UK, they put a £80/ tonne levy on waste going to landfill and that changed things. We need a levy on all landfill and we need to move a lot more quickly.

TEEN STANDS UP AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING Greta Thunberg is a Swedish girl who in September of 2018 at the tender age of 15, came to notoriety for staging a protest aimed at making politicians pay attention to climate change.

Thunberg’s initial protest involved camping out, by herself, in front of the Swedish parliament, instead of attending school, and handing out leaflets. Her efforts became widely known and it is reported that up to 20,000 students from around the world have followed her example.

The now 16-year-old has by now spoken in large international arenas such as the United Nations and the World Economic Forum at Davos, and continues her outspoken efforts to curb carbon emissions and call on politicians to make bigger efforts to do so.

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SUBURBAN SPACES The common garage has a rich past.

Here, Simon Bush-King evaluates a book that takes a serious look at the unimposing room attached to our personal sanctums.

Suburbia has been a source of rich pickings for consumers and producers of culture since the second world war. Films like Edward Scissorhands, American Beauty and The Truman Show all tap into a seam of rich visuals and shared experience accessible to anyone raised in a suburb or having consumed its reflected content. Often overlooked, despite its prominent position fronting the street, the garage has come in for closer inspection thanks to a collaboration between artist Olivia Erlanger and architect Luis Ortega Govela.

The authors bring together a motley collection of garage-based mythologies used by well-known US companies and personalities as key parts in their origin stories. At its core, however, is a fascination between the inherent conservatism of the American suburb and the role of the garage in both reinforcing this conservatism while also fostering creativity and divergent behaviour. This feedback loop between seemingly contradicting forces keeps the stories interesting. At the same time, it strengthens the understanding that they are two sides of the same coin.

Born out of a unique set of circumstances in the US at the beginning of the 20th century, the suburb grew with the motor car and the accessibility of the long-term mortgage as a solution to the banking crisis after the 1929 crash.

These mortgages, highways and suburbs created the foundation for massive wealth over the next 50 years, but were premised on three deliberate policy moves that would define the American suburb; each house had to be stand-alone and have a garage, and its occupants needed to be white. Given these policies, coupled with selfsegregation based on income and a desire to live close to others of similar social and religious beliefs, it is little wonder that homogeneity ensued. The authors connect these broader moves from the 20th century to those of seemingly ‘right now’ in a fluid and compelling manner.

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Images from Garage.

GARAGE f

by Olivia Erlanger and Luis Ortega Govela, The MIT Press, $32

Cultural studies can make for great reads.

Necessarily wide ranging but rarely exhaustive, they typically take an element of current culture and connect it to wider systems of power, creating a narrative of connections and anecdotes as they go. Garage takes just such an approach, starting with Frank Lloyd Wright and the growth of suburbia before delving into one of the hottest buzzwords in the interior world right now – the idea of garagefication. It’s a concept with two attractive features. Firstly, it allows the user to bask in the reflected glory of other garage myths – those of the scrappy start-ups, like HP, Apple, Google and Disney. Then there are the practical attributes – adopting the flexibility and resourcefulness of a space that goes from storing

a car, to being a gym, to hosting band practice.

Garage introduces interesting duos and their stories, including Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal. To this list, we must of course add the authors. A productive and useful tension between the artist and the architect reads strongly, never letting a single tone to establish itself. Rather than being difficult to follow, it keeps the focus squarely where it belongs: crafting a narrative history of the humble garage as a vehicle to describe complex, connected ideas about how we arrived where we are today. Just as we spend little time considering the large doors fronting our streets and cul-desacs, we spend limited time considering the policies and politics that give form to our cities.

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BOOKS Here are some of the books currently gracing our shelves.

e NORTHERN COMFORT: THE NORDIC ART OF CREATIVE LIVING edited by Gestalten and Austin Sailsbury, Gestalten, $74 The environs of some of the world’s northernmost countries – Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Åland and the Faroe Islands – are marked by a remoteness and, often, a hostility that seems stifling. Yet, in it, the Nords have found something altogether different: a near-Xanadu to feed and fuel their personal and creative energies. How and why are the driving questions behind Northern Comfort, which taps into the ideas and values of this reputed ‘Nordic dream’. The effect is twofold. The tome is moreish, not only for the delectable pieces of insight into the better-known hygge, the Danish practice of cosiness, and the lesser-known lagom, the Swedish pursuit of balance. Also included are more rare offerings – notably, a guided walk through the home of famed architect and furniture designer Finn Juhl and a rumination on the nations’ ongoing love affair with liquorice. At the same time, though, its text and images, as if under the spell of lagom, find a careful balance: “there’s not too much, not too little but just the right amount”, to borrow the words from Swedish author Niki Brantmark. Julia Gessler

PREVIEW: INTERIORS BEYOND ARCHITECTURE f edited by Deborah Schneiderman and Amy Campos, Routledge, $271/hardback $89/paperback In an era when gender is increasingly thought of as fluid, the empire of dialectics is being reassessed and female/male power relationships are under microscopic public scrutiny, it is not surprising that the interior design profession is undergoing a theoretical shake-up.

According to this book’s foreword, its essays aim to analyse the “historical and conventional boundaries… in order to unleash the stronghold of architecture and allow interiors to be framed within its own intrinsic qualities”.

The egalitarian goal is not new (i.e. similar to what begat ‘spatial design’) yet the impressive contributors within this book promise a great array of opinions and approaches to the theme: from architectural installation artist Alex Schweder through to Victoria University of

Wellington academic Joanna Merwood-Salisbury (in collaboration with Jasmax architectural graduate Vanessa Coxhead) and from Alexa Griffith Winton to Lois Weinthal.

The tome is divided into three sections (Interiors without Architecture, The Autonomous Inside and The Hyper Interior) and asks questions such as: “How might our cultural history be reframed though an interior-focused discourse? How does inhabitable space dictate personal and social behavior [and vice versa]?”

Display design, film set construction (including an analysis of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel), installation… all are used as tools within this book to redefine the symbolic power structures and role of interiors within the construction ecosystem. Federico Monsalve

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PERSONAL SPACE

(Above) A serene bay in Mangonui.

(Left and below) A Frame for Life by designer Ilse Crawford; Vitra Campus in the German town of Weil am Rhein.

Michael Leng, senior interior designer at Wingate Architects, shares some of the things that make him tick.

What did you get up to over the summer break?

I spent a bit of time with family and hung out with my two lovely little nephews. I also went strawberry and blueberry-picking, brought out the charcoal BBQ (always quite fun trying to start it), had some beach days and, mainly, just tried to have a break.

What’s inspiring you at the moment?

My recent work and personal trips late last year. The former led me to Basel, where I visited Vitra Campus with other creatives in our industry. This was followed

by Cologne for Orgatec, a gigantic commercial trade fair held every two years. Then, on my personal trip, it was the familiar places: Sydney, Hong Kong and Fukuoka in Japan. The simplicity and nature of the creativity I encountered was on point, and quite complex at times in terms of detail, but had genuine and compelling narratives.

I was in awe when I roamed around Tai Kwun, not knowing, at the time, that it had been completed by Herzog & de Meuron. On another occasion, it was a visit to a shrine in Japan that meant I stumbled across the Starbucks by Kengo Kuma.

How do you re-energise yourself creatively?

It’s usually a good rest, an earlymorning workout, getting out of the house or studio. But, most importantly, it’s visiting some eateries with my wife. Some of my favourites at the moment are: Pasta & Cuore; on the shore, Ramen Lab, which has some neat chalk art and a great line-up of ramen; and, lastly, Barulho, which has become a Friday lunch destination for our team – it never disappoints.

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Have you read any good books lately?

The last book I read was A Frame for Life by Ilse Crawford. Over the break, I found a large book at the library. The title of the book is pretty self-explanatory; it’s called Eames: Beautiful Details, by Eames Demetrios. I’m still working my way through this 408-pager. I’m a huge fan of Charles and Ray. If you ever see me on a weekend, I’ll most likely be wearing one of their prints that were released by Uniqlo and the Eames Office, which is, funnily enough, in this book.

What music are you listening to?

I’m interested in anything that has a good tune. It usually ranges from Passion Pit to Motown Classics to the classics – there’s nothing like a bit of Sam Cooke, Al Green or, even, some Sinatra, every once in a while.

Describe what your idea of a dream project would entail.

When I was a kid, theme parks felt like a dream. When I was on the rides, it was always quite theatrical.

Fast-forward to the present: as an adult, nothing much has changed for me. I love a space with a strong narrative and purpose: a space that evokes an emotion. For over a decade, I have followed a Japanese interior design firm called Wonderwall, led by Masamichi Katayama. The diversity in their projects and design output is insane – it would be a dream to collaborate with them on a local project.

(Above and right) Michael Leng, photographed by Jonathan Suckling; Eames Demetrios’ Eames: Beautiful Details; berrypicking in the summer; Kengo Kuma’s Starbucks design; Tai Kwun, completed by Herzog & de Meuron.

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