Victoria University School of Architecture 2015 Masters Research

2015 _ m ast e r o f a r c h i tectu re _ M. Arc h ( p rof ) m ast e r o f l a n d s ca p e arc h it ect ure _ MLA m ast e r o f i n te r i o r a rc h it ect ure _ MIA 1

C on te n ts

01 _ Settling Regional Landscapes Durcan, James Fisher, Charlotte Molloy, Jonathan Quartermain, Elvina Staples, Devo Wong, Monica Zhu, Yan Xin

03 _ Public Ecologies 06 08 10 12 14 16 18

02 _ Reflections

of the Future Apelinga, Xavier Dooley, Ashton Hew, Jia Ying Jones, Mitchell Katsougiannis, Mihali Kusjanto, Grachia Lenihan, Shannon Majurey, Dylan Miller, Aaron Nanji, Shamal Pool, Oliver Wang, Junyi Wurster, Reed

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Denton, Nicholas Ferrari, David Kim, Yang Hou Liw, Vincent Llanera, Ivy Oberdries, Tymara Thorp, Solange Williams, Jackie

50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64

04 _ Responsive Environments

& Robotics 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46

Speirs, Carrie Zivkovic, Jared

68 70

05 _ Parametric Design

& Digital Agency Campbell-Hunt, Katherine Gourley, Simon

74 76

06 _ Housing & Public Infrastructure Cole, Kurt Collins, Charles Bala Kumar, Suraj Green, Anthony Hunter, Ashleigh Kong, Yuqi Lawrie, Alicia Lees, Katrina McClintock, Lisa Melville, Angela Rodgers, Maria Tungatt, Rory Wenden, Matthew

08 _ Community & Corporate Spheres 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100 102 104

07 _ Building Technologies

& Materials Nicholas, Brett Willis, James

108 110

Crooks, Daniel Dittmer, Zakary Kilgour, Kristin Ling, Connie Woon, Vincent Wyborn, Rebecca

114 116 118 120 122 124

09 _ Theory & History Compton, Ellie Kurtz, Jenneke Marsh, Laura McKenzie, Sarah Prins, Anneke Smith, Rosemary

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0 1_ set tli n g regi on a l lan dscapes Supervisors: Martin Bryant Sam Kebbell Derek Kawiti

As cities in New Zealand and around the world rapidly expand, there is a corresponding pressure on their surrounding regions as developers look to expand the city limits; farmers look to increase productivity; indigenous people look to defend their cultural integrity; tourists look for environmental gratification; and lifestyle residents look for their piece of paradise.

These regions are often stunning natural landscapes that are being squandered by individual entities, disconnected from each other, pursuing short term private gain.

What are the compelling alternatives to this downward spiral? We know that strong connections are vital to a resilient framework.

So how might architecture and landscape connect these entities to each other; to the city; to the landscape; and to a broader cultural project? What connections could be made through interventions in the landscape?

What connections could be made with architectural interventions? How might these interventions project new architectures, new landscapes, and new regions?

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M. Arch (prof)

James Durcan Digital indigenous craft: expressing Maori culture through computational tools in architecture

Within present architectural discourse, there is universal concern that contemporary architectural processes efface the culture of indigenous communities, resulting in the homogenisation of architecture globally.

The imminent question therefore is: how can the assimilation of digital tools and indigenous culture be a catalyst to empower culturally embodied architecture that responds to our indigenous Maori identity and spirit, without falling into architectural homogeneity?

Working in direct conjunction with Ngai Tamanuhiri Iwi (tribal group), on the poignant site, Te Kuri-a-Paoa (Young Nicks Head), this thesis initiates dialogue to investigate the amalgamation of progressive digital fabrication techniques and the rich cultural identity and Matauranga Maori (cultural knowledge) of Ngai Tamanuhiri. Subsequently, a pavilion, incorporating a locally inspired ‘whai’ (stingray) motif has been designed providing an architectural framework to facilitate design-led research. One-uku (clay), has been identified early as an indigenous material with enormous potential and has led to the development of a custom-built additive fabrication tool (ceramic 3D printer) that can elevate this abundant local material for use within the architectural sphere. A secondary focus of this research is the development of computational (parametric) and analogue workflows to enable the production of architectural scale ceramic modules.

Ultimately, this thesis argues that when computational design skills are ulilised alongside indigenous knowledge, digitally produced artefacts are capable of becoming meaningful for all.

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Settling Regional Landscapes

supervisor: Derek Kawiti

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M. Arch (prof)

Charlotte Fisher Deus ex machina

Deus ex machina proposes a multi-scale, adaptable theatre on the fringe of Wellington’s waterfront and city, to revitalise the urban environment at both macro and micro scales. Through the activation of theatricality and exposing and expanding the foyer, an unconventional ‘in-between’ space becomes apparent between the theatre and the street.

Architecture brings a theatrical component to every part of our life, but this gift is often not exploited to its fullest. The role of theatricality in everyday life is important, otherwise life would be dull and architecture would not add any value to society. Deus ex machina offers vibrancy back into everyday life through the performative qualities of theatre. It looks beyond the theatricality of performance within theatres and towards the theatricality of the building itself, creating drama for both spectators of the theatre and members of the city.

This project argues that theatre’s history has led to an architectural typology that is generally shut-off from the external environment and therefore the surrounding city. It proposes that exposing the inner workings – the machine – of the theatre that are responsive to users’ needs will create a literal theatre machine.

This will create a publically available civic space on Wellington’s waterfront, on a site where the current architecture is adding no value to its surroundings.

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Settling Regional Landscapes

supervisor: Derek Kawiti

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M. Arch (prof)

Jonathan Molloy Out of context: scaling-up a smalltown, suburban site in Paraparaumu

Out of context explores the potential to ‘scale-up’ a small-town, suburban site.

With iconic landscapes, a warm climate, affordable housing and convenient commuter access to the city, Kapiti Coast is well positioned to become a highly attractive place to live, work and study. Despite its potential, the district’s small town appeal has been tarnished by the characterless form of its townscape and lack of opportunities for its burgeoning youth. All of which seeks to limit its capacity for future economic and community growth.

This thesis proposes the design of a ‘flexible’ polytechnic as an opportunity to attract young talent and to enhance the character of a pivotal suburban site in Paraparaumu: Kapiti’s regional centre.

Positioned at the foothills – with attractive views and a rich natural landscape – current development of the site suggests a continuation of the region’s affinity for suburban sprawl.

The proposition to ‘scale-up’ the site is seen as a critical opportunity to consider how Kapiti might accommodate growth without compromising its small-town appeal. And subsequently, how architecture might act to uncover the site’s ambitious potential.

The proposition is addressed through a series of designled enquiries which react to the contextual opportunities and constraints of ‘scaling-up’ as they arise. The design begins in a speculative fashion, aspiring to enhance the character of the site through form.Later experiments are concerned with strategies to contextualize the form in relation to the small-town fabric which confronts it.

Through the design, a series of tensions are revealed concerning the design of a relatively big building in a small-town, suburban setting. This leads to a discussion regarding the significance of pursuing a highly specific, collective Polytechnic in Kapiti.

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Settling Regional Landscapes

supervisors: Martin Bryant, Sam Kebbell

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MLA

Elvina Quartermain Designed ecologies: breaking away from islandised conservation

This research investigates the role of designed ecologies in the management of our ecosystems and natural resources. It argues that society has adopted a ‘protectionist’ approach toward the planning of our landscapes, which in turn has had a detrimental effect on the integration of conservation and occupation.

The topic of diminishing landscapes has become increasingly more apparent within recent years and has had a significant contribution toward such approach. With concerns around global warming, climate change and an increase in population, methods of counteraction toward the decline of our native species has become of fundamental importance. It is evident that ecosystems and natural resources provide a vital component toward our livability, therefore planning their resilience is crucial.

Various policies have been established to constrain and restrict development in order to protect these ecologies, often within areas of national significance, such as national parks. These implications have proven to be successful in their intention however, the focus of concern lies in the lack of integral thinking on approach to these spaces. Conservation, as it stands, is weighted significantly toward the islandisation of areas with little to no interaction or benefit to those who are expected to protect them.

Looking toward theories centred around productive landscapes and the balance of untouched nature versus those that are interpreted, this research seeks understanding of compromise and compliment. It aims to define a new design approach which: engages with traditional aims to ensure our enjoyment of these ecologies is sustained for future generations; and makes more efficient use of such asset in the way these spaces are designed and utilised on a day to day basis. Four different methods have been tested and are outlined in an attempt to determine a framework for integration.

Though this research was formulated from a landscape architect perspective, in the context of New Zealand, the critique should not be constricted to simply one discipline or one geographical area but instigate a dialogue of discussion between various counterparts on a global scale. These methods are critiqued on the success of the ‘working ecology’ in order to establish a design process which enables an intergrated hybridisation to exist and conservation and occupation to function simultaneously. Successful implications of such model will highlight landscape architecture’s ability to breathe new life back into the design of these spaces, breaking away from islandised conservation and into a new era of dual functioning, resilient outcomes for both our natural and urban spaces.

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Settling Regional Landscapes

RESTORATION NURSERY

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supervisors: Martin Bryant, Sam Kebbell

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RIDGE

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M. Arch (prof)

Devo Staples About architecture, against architecture

The Kapiti Coast is a retreat from the city, and it presents an opportunity to be a nursery of creative culture, liberated from the political and economic pressures of a bigger economy. Creative, young and ambitious people of the Kapiti Coast tend to leave for bigger economies. However, similar people often leave cities too.

Rather than associating creativity with the bigger economy of Wellington, this thesis considers creativity from where many of these people come from – its hinterlands and margins. This thesis proposes a creativity school, providing an example of the type of facility that might give these people a reason to stay in the Kapiti Coast.

In March 2015, the Our Lady of Kapiti Parish announced that they were moving from their existing site on the margins of Paraparaumu to a new site, adjacent to the Kapiti Expressway (under-construction). The existing site includes Paraparaumu Parish and St. Patrick’s Primary School, and occupies the same street block as Paraparaumu Primary School and the Paraparaumu Playcentre.

However, like much of the Kapiti Coast, the existing street fabric is dull and uninspiring.

This thesis aims to investigate architectural forms of expression, as alternatives to the urban sprawl and uninspiring existing fabric of the Kapiti Coast. These alternatives are explored through design-led research, presenting two answers (the initial design experiments and the design) to two issues (context and form).

The initial design experiments present a series of modest interventions that are comparable to the kind of approach a graffiti artist might take to the existing fabric. The subsequent experiments (and the design) present a controlled and formally resolved building on the adjacent hillside. By critically reflecting on both, the two series of design experiments form part of a broader disciplinary discussion on the implications of being about architecture and being against architecture.

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Settling Regional Landscapes

supervisors: Sam Kebbell, Martin Bryant

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Mla

Monica Wong

The Kapiti Coast is changing. The long awaited expansion of the state highway will see rapid growth along the coast and with it, the rural landscape will face a new set of challenges. As the demand for rural land increases, so does land-use tension, with lifestyle blocks in the centre of it all. Productive land, which was once converted from an extensive wetland network, is slowly being redeveloped into residential subdivisions in order to fulfil the increasing demand for the country lifestyle. While lifestyle blocks generally have little productive or ecological value, this positions them to have a significant impact on both land-use and the rural landscape.

Typical methods of dealing with land-use conflicts involve a reliance on the district plan, which designates the most appropriate land-use to the most appropriate area. However, despite good intentions, it has become increasingly obvious planning documents are no longer reaching their desired outcome. This thesis will explore new strategies for designing rural-residential subdivision, aiming to address land-use conflict through the notion of diversity.

Set in the beach hamlet of Peka Peka, the design investigates one of the last undeveloped areas of private coastal land in the district. This area is prime real estate, but also holds a high capacity for production. It is situated on the remnants of the Great Swamp, a large network of interconnecting wetlands that used to span the length of the coast, providing the potential to significantly increase the ecological value of this land. The design embraces the opportunity to use the residential development as an economic driver to help this degraded landscape and turn these investments into something that is not only beneficial to its residents, but beneficial to the larger region.

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Settling Regional Landscapes

supervisors: Martin Bryant, Sam Kebbell

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M. Arch (prof)

Yan Xin Zhu Bazaar in the ‘burbs: infilling a fine grain of activity in the course grain context of Paraparaumu

The regional townships of New Zealand are losing young people.

The township of Paraparaumu, located along the Kapiti Coast, is no exception. As a sprawling low-density suburban settlement with its town center being the Coastlands Shopping Centre – the local mall – there are few job opportunities available. As a result, many early career adults choose to settle elsewhere. Tasked with creating more opportunities, the Kapiti Coast district Council plans to build a new commercial district. To make space for it, this will be done by paving over a large expanse of wetland adjacent to the mall.

The premise of this thesis looks towards the building type of the bazaar as an alternative model for development. Where the modus operandi is to create more large scale commercial boxes, the Bazaar presents a fine-grained model that can infill into the existing site.

The bazaar type celebrates multiplicity and democracy in terms of its spatial layout, which is a direct contrast to the singular and hierarchical nature of the mall that it sits next to. The design in this thesis adopts these ideas and expresses them through a network of modules on a tartan grid plan, transforming the design into a rhythmic series of spaces that express compression and expansion, creating an interlinking network of interior and exterior spaces.

Though the grid is a powerful tool for organising expanses of space in plan, it was found that as a three dimensional form it quickly dissolves into monotony. Similarly, though the intention of a gridded plan is for pure expression of non-hierarchy, the nature of a real context is in fact hierarchical. As result, localised adjustments were made in the roof and exterior to overcome the above challenges. The final design presents one way of activating underutilised suburban spaces, however, this method of a varied, infilling grid could be applied into other context with different three dimensional expressions.

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Settling Regional Landscapes

supervisors: Martin Bryant, Sam Kebbell

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0 2_

Fabricio Chica

Supervisors:

This research topic discusses the relationship between architecture, urban design and sustainability and the implications of design interventions in urban areas to the future of cities. It presents a pragmatic approach for those who want to face the realities of the construction market. The topic also debates the professional role of architects, landscape designers and interior architects’ in the construction market in New Zealand and the world.

Daniel Brown

Jacqueline McIntosh

The dystopian imagination places us directly into a terrifying world alerting us of the danger that the future holds if we do not recognize its symptoms in the present. – Gyan Prakash

Researching in new models of sociallyresponsible architecture using social investigation and design methods such as participatory design, working with real clients, consideration of community and culture.

reflecti o n s o f the futur e

Architecture and dystopia The word dystopia derives from ancient Greek for “bad, hard” and “place, landscape.”

This design-led master’s research stream challenges students to design for a present – as well as a speculative future – characterised by negative environmental, political, economic and social issues. It argues that our ability to effect real change not only involves intervening with the realisable but also through the speculative.

This research explores design as a pathway for social and political activism. It challenges our built environment to arrive at new solutions to 21st century problems we are facing: sites transformed by rising sea levels, global warming, destructive strip mining; sites damaged by war, abandonment, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, and floods; sites responding to disenfranchised youth, marginalized populations, or diasporas; partially completed urban infrastructures or abandoned and dilapidated buildings resulting from economic recession. This research implicates narrative, allegory, and collective memory within the contexts of social history, economics, environmental resilience and cultural identity.

Current issues of concern: • Inappropriate and limited housing and care options for an aging population • Increased international immigration with limited community integration—design for ‘ethnoburbs’ • Architectural responses to the growing gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in New Zealand.

Significance: Design research will address the architectural relationships and contribution to addressing the social issues of our times. This covers topics such as increased global migration and how to design for new migrant groups, displaced or transplanted communities; how to design sustainably with and through local community groups; how to architecturally recreate the essence of a ‘lost’ place while maintaining authenticity; how to design sustainable facilities for collective community-building purposes; how to design for disability and for aging populations.

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MIA

Xavier Apelinga The labyrinth of the mind: exploring the five stages of grief through interior architecture

Since the 1930s, New Zealand has seen a dramatic rise in psychological disorders such as paranoia, depression, anxiety and addiction. People in general are often too caught up in their own lives to acknowledge what is happening around them, which hinders them from recognising those who suffer from such disorders.

Psychological disorders come in different levels; some are subtle while others are extreme. Thus arises the problem of how the experience of a psychological disorder can be presented and explored in an alternative manner. This thesis explores the subject of grief and interprets the ‘Five Stages of Grief’ formulated by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying, through experiential means of interior architecture. The five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – are critically examined and presented as a narrative for general people to experience and allow them to gain a deeper understanding of the psychological implications of grief, through the proposed intervention. Through the methodology of narrative design, the intricate experiences of psychological disorders are illustrated spatially in a meaningful way and in turn encourage empathy.

My thesis aims to provide various interior design explorations that demonstrate appropriate spatial qualities for each of the stages of grief. This involves manipulation of different sensory elements such as form and light. Various sensory elements influence the state of mind of an environmental observer, which results in difficulty in understanding an affective experience.

To conclude, my thesis proposes five experiential spaces that represent the five stages of grief, within the boundaries of Mount Crawford Prison. Through manipulation of light and form, five experiential spaces will be proposed to allow people to gain an emotional understanding of the psychological implications of grief.

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Reflections of the Future

supervisor: Daniele Abreu e Lima

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M. Arch (prof)

Ashton Dooley A sordid chronicle of outer suburbia: the tale of 2100

A reflection on worldly trends evokes the question as to what new attributes our earth will manifest in the next eighty-five years – by 2100. What effects have we wrought in a lifetime of procreation, consumption and production? With the continual expansion of our population, with its sprawling and polluting, reports are depicting a negative future as the climate continues to alter. The effects of this change is most critical for those bound by coastal edges, as the sea rises to claim what is now usable land. This thesis looks at one such area: Wellington, New Zealand. The city is dictated by the sea and sprawling inland is not a resolute solution.

This thesis proposes that a sea-based kinetic suburb can improve upon the sordid living conditions predicted for 2100, through adaptive and responsive design. By exploring a vision of the year 2100 that has been defined by the implications of excessive suburban sprawl, in alignment with extreme environmental conditions, this thesis proposes how coastal bound communities can survive in anthropogenic aftermath. It argues that with mobile apartment towers suited to the ocean, socialisation and connectivity within a suburban area can be increased while still resisting new climatic demands.

This research offers informed insight into the future evolution of living, considering both past and present trends, by defining a new chapter for suburbia and a typology that is more flexible and convivial.

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reflections of the future

supervisor: Fabricio Chicca

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MLA

Jia Ying Hew The dam archive

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Reflections of the Future

supervisor: Daniel Brown

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M. Arch (prof)

Mitchell Jones The memory that remembers us

Future habitation of earth is an ever-increasing concern, with the proliferation of problems such as overpopulation, climate change, nonviable waste disposable methods and over-consumption of natural resources. These issues are influencing some contemporary designers to consider ways of moving away from earth to new habitations in space where we can survive if the earth becomes uninhabitable. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo is currently engaging technicians and engineers to design plans for a city in space. But architectural design theory, in addition to engineering, must play a fundamental role in such a project, if it is to meet the social, cultural and political needs of its inhabitants.

People on earth benefit significantly from the ability to engage with the natural environment. But in outer space, this is not a condition that normally would be considered viable. In a space city, by default the traditional notion of an outside landscape setting needs to occur inside. This imperative becomes one of the principal reasons why this thesis looks at biophilia as a direction for the design research experiments, since biophilic systems at a large scale can provide a sense of an ‘outside’ landscape even ‘within’ the architecture of the design research. This thesis advances this concept further by proposing that the occupants can live within such a system, rather than peripheral to it, enabling the occupants to become a fundamental part of a working system.

The memory that remembers us asks the question: how can pressing issues such as global scarcity and severe environmental transformation be strategically represented to the public through politically motivated ‘speculative’ architecture? Using Factory Fifteen; a visual studio that work in architectural communication, design work of Chris Abbot’s novel Xavier of the World as a provocative generator of a speculative design as well as a driver for the site and programme, the architecture of a city in space is used to illustrate a new interpretation of physical, social, economic, cultural and political parameters for twenty-first century architecture.

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Reflections of the Future

supervisor: Daniel Brown

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MLA

Mihali Katsougiannis Over your cities grass will grow

Around the world lie dormant landscapes, altered by mankind and subsequently abandoned. While the eerie beauty of abandoned man-made landscapes remains, the sites themselves stay stagnant, stunning, but unproductive – for both man and nature. Without any intervention they remain trapped in time left alone to slowly decay and return to a natural, wilderness state in which an important part of the site’s heritage becomes lost.

In the abandoned Greek town of Levissi, Turkey – deserted and displaced by a devastating war – thistles have taken over the city, the houses conquered by weeds and thorn bushes. Without a viable plan to preserve the site, the town has been left to slowly decay; this thesis work explores how landscape architecture can help prevent the further destruction of Levissi, preserving both the landscape and its story – by integrating resilience with narrative design – for future generations to help them remember this event so that it may never happen again.

The focus of this research involved the design of independent interventions throughout Levissi – transforming the town into an atypical ‘museum’, intertwined with the ongoing preservation and restoration of its natural landscape – connecting people to both mankind and nature’s pasts. Through the use of interventions and the transformation of the ‘everyruin’ this research is an expression of what might be possible – acting as the seeds for the ‘rebirth’ of historically significant, abandoned landscapes and in doing so creating ‘a life after life.’

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Reflections of the Future

supervisors: Daniel Brown, Peter Connolly

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MLA

Grachia Kusjanto Reconnecting life of those with dementia back to their families and the wider society

Dementia has become one of the most feared diseases. It is feared more than cancer for those over fifty years of age. The progressive and distressing nature of the symptoms have been widely known to affect both the person with dementia as well as their families. Eventually, the family has to decide whether to take care of their loved ones themselves or send them to a professional care facility. Currently, dementia care facilities are generally disconnected from the community, confine the residents and lack stimulation. Inactive bodies and minds can result in agitation and faster progression of the disease.

Through multidisciplinary literature review, first-hand observations of the patient behaviors and a review of existing case studies, this thesis explores how landscape architecture can help in creating a better life experience for those with dementia who live in a care facility. The design ideas are near Te Hopai, an existing dementia care facility in Newtown, Wellington.

To overcome the stigmatised environment in the existing facility, this thesis explores the possibilities of bringing the residents out and encouraging the public into their territory, increasing social interaction. A wide group of people such as carers, families and the wider community were considered in the design. Te Hopai’s surroundings, which are currently empty spaces and car parks, have been transformed into a functional and welcoming landscape, which the public can use. The landscape has also been designed to encourage residents with dementia who were previously confined inside to experience the outdoor environment. Through designing a socially active, accessible and experiential space that is easy to navigate and interact with, this thesis hope to reconnect and improve the life experience of the person with dementia as well as their community.

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Reflections of the Future

supervisors: Jacqueline McIntosh, Peter Connolly

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Mia

Shannon Lenihan The memories of our future: the memories of Maui.

The Maui A and Maui B offshore oil and gas platforms are nearing the end of their economic lifespan. Globally, the current most common decommissioning method of oil platforms involves the use of explosives at the base of the jacket. The structure is then towed to shore and dismantled. The explosives leave scars not only on the landscape the platforms once inhabited; they critically damage the surrounding marine ecology, severely harming and/or killing vast numbers of marine species. This is of severe concern for the marine life and ecosystems surrounding the Maui A and Maui B platforms as they are located in an extremely sensitive marine area where over thirty percent of the world’s cetacean species inhabit or through which they frequently migrate. Only two of these marine mammal species are not listed as ‘species of concern’ in the New Zealand Threat Classification list.

The future of these platforms does not need to cause more adversity to the environment, but rather can regenerate it. By repurposing, rather than exploding and dismantling these structures, this thesis aims to propose a way to re-inhabit the Maui A platform and transform it into an educational retreat that enables further awareness, reconciliation, restoration, and protection of marine systems, environment, and threatened marine species. This thesis explores opportunities to create a closed circuit system as a means of providing food, fresh water, water treatment and energy for the platform.

To achieve this regenerative solution in ways that will resonate with those who visit the Maui A Platform, this project enters the realm of the imagination. The imagination is fundamental to learning – hence the proposition that this design be framed as both mythological and experiential. Narrative design, or story telling, is explored as a tool to connect sustainable awareness and consciousness as a means to help educate the beneficiaries of this world – our children.

To encourage adult visitors to fully recognise that the beneficiaries are indeed our children, the thesis investigation will design the new environmental centre through the eyes of the child.

As a tool to enhance the historic narrative of the site and context, the design strategically frames traces of important or unnoticed elements or equipment of the Maui A platform.

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reflections of the future

supervisor: Daniel Brown

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The South Pacific Island of Funafuti, Tuvalu is at threat of becoming one of the first countries globally to be inundated due to rising sea levels. The likely result is that the people of this country will lose a sense of place and culture, unable to sustain their national sovereignty in thetowards face ofthe impending climateunit change and refugee Figure 05: Author External perspective looking lagoon and dwelling proposed. status. Willi Telavi, Tuvalu’s Prime Minister states “relocation is not seen as an option but as a last resort, rights to land and culture are Sovereign sense held with the utmost importance” (McNamara and Gibson, 2009).

Relocation will result in a loss of sovereignty, however, architectural intervention can insure that a sense of sovereignty is maintained on the islands during the drastic climate change transformations that they face. The intention of this architectural thesis is to design a solution that actively engages with sea-level rise so that Tuvalu and F U N A F U T I AT O L L other low-lying atoll nations can maintain a minimum of subsistence dwelling, economy and sovereignty.

M. Arch (prof)

Dylan Majurey

Tuvalu’s capital Funafuti Atoll, consists of 33 islets that encircle a lagoon. The largest is Fongfale islet which has been selected for investigation.

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The current problems the Capital Island of Funafuti face are crippling, with the loss of coastal areas and increased tidal flooding.

This results not only in a loss of land area but also permanent salinisation in areas traditionally used for crop harvesting. This salinisation will only increase in severity with the projected future sea-level rises. It will force the population of Funafuti to become climate refugees before it is fully submerged (IPCC, 2013).

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This critical reflection aims to investigate the architectural advantages of atoll environments. How the preservation of social, cultural identity and order can be maintained through a contemporary evolutionary process within architecture itself.

Reflections of the Future

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Author exterior perspective, looking toward a vegtable hub.

Exterior perspective looking at the entire rig from a flooded shoreline supplementing the land lossed to provide a sense of sovereignty within a changing context.

supervisor: Maibrit Pedersen- Carles Martinez-Almoyna

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M. Arch (prof)

Aaron Miller The pallet paradigm: a new beginning for pallet architecture

Timber pallets are too often discarded as waste after their shipping lives. If not rescued for upcycling, pallets end up in landfills or burnt for firewood, which can release harmful chemicals. There is an opportunity in this resource – going beyond current design use – to foster a more authentic pallet architecture, one where pallets are used to their module’s full potential as a primary and structural building element.

This thesis explores to what extent pallets can be utilised in construction and determines their feasibility as structural entities.

The themes of modularity and transportability act as key design drivers, due to being inherent to the pallets nature. A construction system which effectively uses this nature is the aim, and designed systems are tested through application to the design of mobile architecture.

The final outcome of this exploration is a full scale pallet pavilion utilising a modular, authentic system, which enables an easily portable and structural solution. However, the application of similar systems to a larger scale is limited, as pallets with consistent module and high strength are rare difficult to source.

A new pallet design is proposed with inherent application as a building component. This design aims to be a highly precise modular and structural system as its primary function, allowing for universal use as walls, roofs and floors. The central purpose of exploration is to create high quality, affordable, efficient and adaptable prefabricated dwellings from an otherwise discarded item – this is the potential for the research in future. If the building pallet design was integrated into circulation, the impact and application on construction from upcycling them into prefabricated building elements could be implemented worldwide.

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Reflections of the Future

supervisor: Daniele Abreu e Lima

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Mia

Shamal Nanji Universal sanctum

In the realm of religion, when rituals and prayers become a routine or a default action – often prescribed by elders – they lose their value and meaning. In the modern era, we have distanced ourselves from the past ideals of religion. Nevertheless we continue to seek meaning in life beyond material objects. The connection to the inner-self establishes this meaning and purpose. From this understanding I realised that all religions, despite their subtle differences lead to spirituality and enlightenment. The idea that architecture can provide a universal middle ground between people and that which they innately seek from their lives, is the context from which my thesis proposal derives from.

Thesis question: how can the design of a universal space of spiritual devotion be realised through exploration and manipulation of spatial qualities within sacred architecture, in a contemporary inner-city context?

This thesis looks into the architectural genre of sacred space in a contemporary setting. The research investigates the significance of sacred architecture and the common qualities between the various religions and their respective places of worship. This leads to a proposition of an interior space which can be deemed sacred by any one from any religion seeking spiritual upliftment. In doing so, the space aims to unify people from different religious and cultural backgrounds, and lead them towards the common goal of connecting with the inner self.

The key theory investigated in this research looks at the case of religion for today’s society – interpretation of spirituality in the east and the west – defining sacred architecture and all that it entails, and the need for this typology in the contemporary world.

The contextual basis of this thesis focuses on New Zealand and the predominantly contemporary and diverse culture. The rise in various ethnicities and technological advances means that the presence of a universal space of spiritual reflection and gathering is necessary now more than ever. In my observation there is a noticeable lack of contemporary sacred architecture in New Zealand.

Perhaps this is the result of our predominantly secular society. My proposal will aspire to see through this absence and attend to the need of spatial experience to mediate between people and which they spiritually seek.

40

Reflections of the Future

supervisor: Daniele Abreu e Lima

41

Mla

Oliver Pool Pulse: recovering the lost heartbeat of the Wellington landscape

With the expansive urbanisation of New Zealand’s once natural landscape, the flowing streams – the pulse of the land’s heart – lie dormant, out of mind, out of sight. These flowing waterways were once the backbone of settlement growth, but with increases in infrastructural technology, these waterways became culverted, entombed underground so that the city had free reign to expand.

These forgotten streams are now carriers of pollution, unable to breathe beneath the confinements of the city. The question arises as to what the potential may be with these forgotten streams if returned to the surface of the city. Can these streams offer an alternative blueprint to help address the extreme climatic events that are increasing in regularity and breaching the fixed capacity of our contemporary hydrological infrastructure?

The proposed 1.3-kilometre-long site for this design research investigation is the buried traces of the Kumutoto Stream, the once instrumental life source that flowed through the heart of Wellington’s early settlement, before being the inaugural stream to be culverted beneath the burgeoning urban environment. The site transverses beneath a multitude of urban and spatial identities now devoid of any ability to reflect the heritage stories it once helped define.

This thesis argues that, within the context of the urban environment of Wellington City, the re-surfacing of the Kumutoto Stream can enhance the social, ecological and climatic qualities of the city, whilst offering an important link to the forgotten heritage of the early settlement.

Research question: this thesis questions how contemporary landscape architecture can reimagine the forgotten landscape of modern cities that have been lost to the rapid urbanisation of the landscape?

42

Reflections of the Future

supervisors: DANIeL BROWN, Carles Martinez-Almoyna

43

M. Arch

Junyi Wang Farming and living in Chinese urban villages

China has experienced rapid urbanisation, which has substantially increased the pressure on rural land. The physical expansion of cities has transformed villages once located in rural areas into villages in urban areas. Groups of high-rise glass towers are being built to surround these villages. Thus, urban villages are facing problems, such as crowded and cluttered material landscapes, unhealthy living environments, as well as security and social issues. As a result, people struggle to cope with urban lives in this environment.

This thesis investigates the physical relationship between local dwellings and urban farming in Yuhuazhai Village in Xi’an, China. Several theories have been engaged in this research. They are ‘Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes’ by Architects Bohn and Viljoen; ‘Edge of a City’ by Steven Holl; and ‘Anti–object’ by Kengo Kuma. Work from each theory has been used to explain the theoretical part of this design. More projects related to specific food production are also discussed.

This thesis explores possibilities to address issues associated with Chinese urban villages, specifically the relationships between farming and living, empty and solid spaces, and the means of linking people with food and environment. Finally, it proposes a potential solution by introducing food production and transforming old urban villages into new farming communities that would benefit cities.

44

Reflections of the Future

supervisor: Fabricio Chicca

45

M. Arch (prof)

Reed Wurster The last house

The Carteret Islands are a small atoll chain eighty-six kilometres northeast of the mainland of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. It is believed the small island community will become the world’s first climate change refugees.

The small islands are facing a number of climate related issues.

As a low-lying atoll chain, they are especially vulnerable to the effects of slow-onset sea level rise, and they have already begun to witness the threat that this presents to their homeland.

Such small and low-lying islands leave few alternatives when faced with rising sea levels, and the Carteret Islands have already begun to feel the effects of migration, with more than a third of the population now relocated onto the mainland of Bougainville Province.

However, for many the resettlement proved to be challenging. The new landscape was unfamiliar and harsh, the sea out of sight. Many of the older islanders only spoke their native tongue, finding it difficult to communicate and assimilate in their new context. It has also been shown from previous forced relocations that people are likely to be affected by severe economic, social, and environmental hardship, specifically in the wake of climate-induced displacement.

To flee the islands is to lose their identity, and they fear it would mark the end of the Carteret people. The draw of the sea, despite its risks and vulnerabilities, has endured.

The aim of this design-led research is to critically consider the notion that buildings are necessarily impermanent, and to explore the implications of accepting the condemnation of site and architecture through design interventions that address the salient issues of the place and its people.

46

Reflections of the Future

supervisor: Daniel Brown

47

0 3_ publ i c eco logi es Supervisors: Peter Connolly Mark Southcombe Maibritt Pedersen Zari

The world is changing rapidly. We are more interconnected and also understand our connections more deeply. We face uncertain and massive global changes in the near future. It makes no sense to approach design by focusing on isolated and precious objects, spaces, buildings or landscapes. Designing is also about understanding, intervening in, and integrating with wider life contexts, systems and networks, extended in time and space.

What we are designing is no longer just ‘out there’ as a separate object. It is part of one single larger realm: nature or the earth. Landscapes, interiors and the city are not like designed or ‘architecturalised’ objects. Drawings, computer screens, design practice and education tend to treat them like they are.

Dumb histories talk about landscape in terms of scenery. Interiors get understood in ergonomically-individualised ways. We are, however, part of an ecology of realms that are continuous in time and space. The objects and spaces that together create the designed environment are composite, contextual fields, where objects interact and have effects on their surroundings and occupants.

49

“These are different ‘worlds’, not one world viewed differently.”1

M. Arch (prof)

Nick Denton A place to navigate with/in: negotiation of architecture and urban environments in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Do our built environments reflect an equitable partnership between tangata whenua (people of the land) and tangata tiriti ) (people of the Treaty)? Or do they remain as European colonial/ western constructions that give little recognition to Maori spatial narratives that inhabit and imbue these places? This thesis was motivated by these questions, and inspired to explore strategies of future urban partnerships, asking: how can architecture and its practices support an equitable negotiation of the design of urban environments in Aotearoa New Zealand, between tangata whenua and tangata tiriti?

However, in the course of this research, a more fundamental question became the more urgent as a Pakeha researcher: what changes in settler self-identities and entrenched patterns of thought and behaviour are required to support the development of new, decolonised relationships between indigenous and settler peoples?2 This thesis drew on emerging fields of research and practice that address different parts of these questions. Defined as ‘research at the interface’ and ‘spatial agency,’ these fields investigate the negotiation of systems of knowledge at an interface between settler and indigenous peoples, and the deconstruction of traditional power relationships between architecture and the environments it is within.

At their intersection, this thesis proposed a ‘place to navigate with/ in,’ being a place of negotiation both with and in the environment.

Navigation was used to capture the intentions of this negotiation, asking: ‘where are we now, and where are we going next?’

The designed outcome of this negotiated space were seven observatories and a methodology. Following a line of constant latitude, each sits at a discovered intersection of Māori and Pākehā navigation. Their design is intentionally destabilized, existing simultaneously as scale representations of space and places critiquing those very methods of representation. The observatories act as an epistemological bridge, a methodology drawn as a pathway, for an ‘allied other’ navigating between worlds.

1.

Salmond, Anne. ‘Ontological Quarrels: Indigeneity, Exclusion and Citizenship in a Relational World’. Anthropological Theory 12.2 (2012): 119.

2. Bell, Avril. Relating Indigenous and Settler Identities: Beyond Domination.

Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (2014): 139.

50

Public Ecologies

supervisor: Mark Southcombe

51

M. Arch (prof)

David Ferrari Re. structure: finding the synergetic relationships between functioning urban ports, trapped landscapes, and public life.

In many countries around the world, contemporary urban ports have a major economic, infrastructural and dominant presence along strategic waterfront edges. In terms of public life, these industrial private entities disconnect themselves from their parent city due to the interaction between several factors, namely: topography; orientation; positioning; port typology; the safety and functionality of ports; urban planning; and the effects on the natural ecology. The changing nature of how a city utilises its waterfront questions whether urban ports have a role within the heart of the city. The potential to restructure port areas and the surrounding spaces that have been effected by development, leads to the creation of dynamic public life entities. With these large infrastructural entities, the areas surrounding the boundaries are compromised and are trapped in a confusion of development and derelict design. Trapped landscapes often have detrimental effects on natural environments. This negative impact can be seen in the urban fabric of the city and in the public well-being and life of the occupants of those spaces.

This thesis investigates urban areas trapped by functioning port infrastructure, specifically the area known as the Quay Park Quarter, situated in Auckland, New Zealand. The Ports of Auckland, directly north of the area, imposes a dominating, privatised and industrial statement to contribute to the nature of this trapped landscape. The Quay Park Quarter includes heritage sites, railway infrastructure, and ad-hoc developments, some of which were initially intended to rejuvenate the area.

With this in mind, the research question asked: how do you transform historical industrial precincts, which are trapped behind functioning urban ports to contribute to the public life of a city?

52

Public Ecologies

supervisor: Peter Connolly

53

M. Arch (prof)

Yang Hou Kim Public space event space: reimagining the stadium typology for a city in need of revitalisation

Like many stadiums across the world, New Zealand’s sporting arenas demonstrate a sharply bipolar division of use and atmosphere. On event days, the stadium fulfils the entertainment needs of tens of thousands of the public at a time, as well as the potential millions it captivates through television. However, in stark contrast, when no event is held, the stadium lies dormant, usually completely sealed off to the public both architecturally and functionally. It resembles a desolate shell allowing no use to be made of the large chunk of prime urban fabric it resides on. With this, comes a clash of ideals: on one hand the stadium can be seen to conjure extraordinary levels of sporting atmosphere and community upliftment which in turn generates huge social and economic benefits. On the other hand, it is more often than not a publicly inaccessible white elephant in all its monolithic rigidity.

Because of this, the people of Christchurch are currently at odds with the proposal of a new 35,000-seat stadium to replace the quake-damaged AMI Stadium. This thesis uses the current politically focused stadium debate as an opportunity to reimagine the typology of stadia towards a hybrid adaptive public space that is invaluable to the city during its many non-event days. The design-led research establishes that Christchurch does indeed need to focus its resources on the revitalisation of its city centre. Where a traditional stadium may go against this objective, this thesis questions architecture’s role in how a reinterpreted mixed-use stadium for Christchurch can be designed to actively catalyse revitalisation without compromising its ability to facilitate a top-tier sports event.

By reconstructing the traditional stadium typology through an urban-design lens, this thesis proposes how such a typology can be researched by challenging existing models of mixed-use methods and incorporating strategies of permeability to blur the line between public and private. More importantly, tactics to incorporate kinetic and adaptive design gestures to allow a space to transform from a fully functioning stadium to a highly accessible public hub are investigated.

54

Public Ecologies

supervisor: Maibritt Pedersen Zari

55

M. Arch (prof)

Vincent Liw No aircon: contemporary Malaysian urban housing that breathes

The warm and humid tropical climate in Malaysia has a fairly consistent diurnal and annual average temperature. For relief against the heat, cooling strategies are incorporated into the architectural design of houses. However, most contemporary residential buildings in Malaysia are adaptations of Western models, resulting in closed and defensive designs. This approach has little success in responding to the tropical climate and compromises thermal comfort. Mechanical cooling systems are widely used to counteract this design flaw and create a desirable indoor environment. These bring adverse effects to the environment.

This thesis proposes a climate-responsive high-density housing design in a Malaysian urban context through a bioclimatic approach.

This approach is based on Ken Yeang’s interpretation of bioclimatic design, which perceives local climate as an integrated design consideration. Vernacular design principles are also considered in defining new local architecture and are central to this research.

Emphasis is placed on improving ventilation and shading performance. Vernacular design principles such as stilted floors, large openings, overhangs and open planning are reinterpreted and applied throughout the design process. By providing effective ventilation and protection from the sun, a cooler and climate responsive indoor environment is created. This is further enhanced through higher heat dissipation rates achieved by exposing extra surface areas to the external environment.

The research resulted in an apartment complex design that has good ventilation and sunshading performance, located in Penang’s urban context.

56

Public Ecologies

supervisor: Mark Southcombe

57

MLA

Ivy Llanera “Tao rin kami” (We are humans too): planning informality as part of the city

In mega cities of the ‘newly industrialised’ and ‘developing’ world, the most prominent urban issue relates to informality. Informal practices, such as squatting and street vending, have colonised gaps and edges of the built environment and are now intertwined with the physical, economical and cultural aspects of the formal city.

For many decades these practices have always been perceived as parasitic and problematic for the well being of a city.

Many government and non-government organisations have already implemented programs to address issues with informality.

In recent years the design world has also engaged with these programmes through new approaches, such as slum upgrading, to improve living conditions in informal settlements. However, these practices tend to address this urban phenomenon as an island of poverty rather than an integral part of the city. Dismantling the great social divide between the informal and formal realms has not been fully investigated yet and thus is the main focus of this research.

The context of this research is set in Manila, Philippines where informality proliferates the city and the former Pandacan Oil Depot in the heart of Manila is the main testing ground for design.

Learning from assemblage studies of current informal practices in Manila and from existing projects that deal with informality, this design-led research challenges current misconceptions about urban informality and advocates a shift in approach in dealing with it. The design components of this research do not focus on creating landscape systems. Instead, they look at producing social space typologies that can be applied to structure a model of a symbiotic city. This research also anticipates that through this shift in approach to urban informality, more effective and long-term proposals to improve current living conditions in informal settlements and their connection with the wider city will emerge.

58

Public Ecologies

1

5

4 2

3

N

Scale 1:10000

1

Barangay 833

2

Barangay 834

3

Barangay 835

4

Barangay 836

5

New Barangay

1 PA

SIG

RIV

ER

9

1

3 5 8 2

4

3

2

7

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5 N Scale 1:14000

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Proposed Areas of Canal Widening

Proposed Canal and Waterfront Walkway

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Possible Floodable Zone

Existing Open Canal in the Oil Depot Area

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Waterfront Boulevard

4

Church Grounds

2

Central Market and Mall

5

Barangay 836

3

Main Arterial Road

Proposed Canal and Waterfront Walkway

supervisor: Peter Connolly

59

M. Arch (prof)

Tymara Oberdries Reactive river realms: architecture designed as a regenerative tool for the biological and ecological remediation of urban rivers, to provide positive connection, education and interaction.

Since the industrial era the built environment has been developed using technologies, patterns and systems that largely contradict how the natural world behaves. Buildings have an enormous impact on the environment as they consume tremendous amounts of natural resources, water and energy as well as producing a great deal of pollution.

Many New Zealanders have a strong affinity with the natural environment unique to this country and in particular the rivers that weave through their urban landscapes. Rivers are an exceptional aspect of nature, which can be thriving, living entities crucial to the survival of many diverse ecosystems. However, as our built environment has and continues to rapidly expand there is a tendency to cut the river out of urban life. This separation doesn’t just deprive the public of recreational enjoyment it has also led to numerous negative ecological and biological implications such as habitat and biodiversity loss.

This thesis investigates the concept of ‘regenerative design’; a process in which an architectural intervention produces more ecosystem services than it consumes. By acknowledging relationships that exist between people and local ecologies, the built environment can be re-imagined in connection with the natural one. This ultimately establishes a framework for regenerative urban river design.

This framework offers design techniques that rediscover the urban-river as a place of recuperation, remediation and recreation.

Testing how architectural interventions can engage with various river ecosystems and contribute to a more enjoyable and thriving public space, while addressing a potential ecological regeneration agenda.

60

Public Ecologies

supervisor: Maibritt Pedersen Zari

61

M. Arch (prof)

Solange Thorp Tangible remains

This design-led research advocates for an architecture indicative of the preceding history that engages in an active dialogue with the site. Developed through shifting scales and media, the thesis investigates how architecture can give expression to the singularities of site.

The scope of the thesis focuses on the case study of an urban Wellington site on the corner of Taranaki Street and Frederick Street.

The majority of the site is rubble with one remaining historic building: a Chinese mission hall, built in 1905. Instigated by a rigorous archaeological dig, the site is explored at various scales to unpack its past, existing and projected future cultural, ecological, physical identities.

The milieu of erasures and the enduring traces are drawn to the surface and manifested across three design phases: Chinese garden (present condition); art school (past reflection); artist colony (future projection). Through a process of editing, fragments are extended and retracted between the phases as more intense programs are introduced. The final design outcome is the result of an additive design methodology, developed across the course of the thesis.

This methodology is a model for combining sites in contemporary urban development – a model for co-existence of past and present into the future.

62

Public Ecologies

supervisor: mark southcombe

63

M. Arch (prof)

Jackie Williams Social suburban fields

The ongoing housing development of greenfield sites in New Zealand is an unsustainable model of population expansion. It has continued to be driven by developers holding on to the idea that New Zealanders want to live in a ‘quarter acre block with a standalone home.’ These new suburbs are considered to be well planned through a top down approach of masterplanning. However, this approach leads to a social disconnection of the ground and streetscape for neighbours living in these new suburbs, even though these suburbs claim to be setting the contemporary standard of development.

Running concurrently to this is the adoption of Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD). New Zealand councils are beginning to adopt and implement WSUD principles, requiring new subdivisions to treat their stormwater runoff on site. Large excavated grassed spaces consequentially function as water retention basins for the stormwater runoff (of the suburban development). The reality of these large retention basins is that local residents tend to be less engaged with them as they are only designed to perform technically and are continually wet.

Therein lies this thesis’s argument: that there is an unexplored social potential of distributing stormwater infrastructure within suburban developments. This thesis proposes that architecture has a role in re-engineering the distribution of stormwater infrastructure within a suburban development. In doing so it will test the reconfiguration of the architectural typology of suburban houses as a viable, contemporary approach for rethinking greenfield sites. The site of this investigation is an undeveloped area called Hendersons Basin in South-West Christchurch, New Zealand. It is a site surrounded by established suburbs, however, due to its frequent exposure to inundation, the topography and Christchurch’s high water table, it is yet to be developed. This thesis argues for a denser suburban development model that can create social fields of architecture, as the current low density suburban subdivision is no longer sustainable. The idea of social fields is tested against three scales: the suburb, the neighbourhood node and the cluster.

64

Public Ecologies

supervisor: Peter Connolly, Mark Southcombe

65

0 4_ respo n si v e envi ron men ts & ro boti c s Supervisors: Tane Moleta

Kevin Sweet

Information space Mixed reality (MR) is a generic term based on the taxonomy of Millgram and Kishino (1994), which articulates soft boundaries between fully synthetic digital space and real environments, using what they termed as the ‘virtuality continuum’. The continuum locates a range of hybrid approaches to combining the real and the digital, including augmented reality (AR) (the superimposition of virtual objects within real environments) and augmented virtual worlds (AV) (real time audio visual portals within virtual environments).

Contemporary digital processes Digital design processes in architecture, once solely existing in the realm of academia, have become prevalent in contemporary architectural firms globally. Firms like Zaha Hadid, Foster and Partners, Aedas, SnĂśhetta, SOM, Kohn Pederson Fox, all utilise parametric tools, simulation software and/or various programming languages. Coupled with computer numerically controlled machines and other digital output devices they explore a multitude of complex design proposals from responsive facades, to zero carbon buildings, to robotic brick laying.

Typically design experimentation with AR or AV has been constrained by the available technology, but the recent availability of sophisticated authoring software such as Unity, opened up significant new possibilities for designers. For the purpose of this research stream, MR is acknowledged as a wellestablished research area with an increasing volume of material divided between open ended experimentation, development for early stage design or use in highly-resolved visualisation for developed design.

In the architectural industry, MR has been used to pre-visualise buildings at scale on site, embedded in a real living context which allows a designer to view architectural interventions sited in context in real-time.

The building professional of the future, in order to progress and redefine the role of the architect, landscape architect, interior designer, or building scientist, will have to be versed in, or at the very least aware of, these digital processes in order to be successful in a growing, competitive environment.

This research stream aims to explore some of these digital processes as a means to solve complex, multi-layered problems similar to those one might find or create in the profession. It will investigate the potential of complex digital processes at multiple scales: from the simulation of affects at the urban scale to the creation of a detailed connection at the furniture scale.

67

M. Arch (prof)

Carrie Matson Simplified for resilience: a parametric investigation into a bespoke joint system for bamboo

Coastal communities face extreme weather conditions. The enormous forces that develop in and around open water, such as hurricanes and tsunamis, wreak havoc on coastal structures, and total devastation remains an ever-looming possibility. Research reveals that most structural failures in coastal buildings are related to improper construction methods. This research thus pursued a new building methodology that reduces human error in the building process by taking advantage of computational tools and using renewable building materials.

The thesis investigates the creation of a structural module in bamboo: a lightweight, but strong material. Using bamboo in an infill hexagon configuration, based on the Honeycomb Tube Architecture (HTA) enables a strong fractal geometry construction that is more structurally reliable in coastal buildings than standard processes allow. Furthermore, when tested in steel, the infill hexagon broke along a consistent pattern, enabling occupants to predict the final point of failure and turning the fractal geometry into a fractal dynamic. If the failure of the geometry is not catastrophic, the bamboo can all be replaced and the building structure restored.

The organic nature of bamboo makes cane sizes irregular and unpredictable, an inconsistency that drives the design development.

Customised responsive joints, which allow the bamboo to attain a fractal hexagonal geometry structure, are created using parametric software and prototyped using three-dimensional printing technology. Parametrics give control, based on the programmed relationships between the different shapes and sizes of each unique bamboo connection. Moreover, fabricating each joint as needed eliminates waste and allows the joints’ materiality to be calibrated as required.

This thesis introduces the groundwork for the implementation of ‘on-site’ manufacturing, utilising the power and performance of parametric software with the future technology of bespoke ‘printed’ joints – a flexible system that employs organic materials and defends against volatile coastal conditions.

68

Responsive environments & robotics

supervisor: Kevin Sweet

69

M. Arch (prof)

Jared Zivkovic Architecture of the athlete

Designers of sports facilities focus on physical aspects, like walls and tile angles to improve an athlete’s performance. However, from experience, the mental components of an athlete’s performance are overlooked; which is believed to have a greater impact on their overall performance.

Using my experiences to produce a unique body of research, this thesis focuses on using the athlete’s perspective to design. This thesis investigates sporting facilities and natatoriums as the focus.

Using the skill of architects to create space and affect emotion, the research investigates how they can be used to create an atmosphere that will allow an athlete to enter their optimal emotional state to achieve a successful sporting performance.

The research will look at the emotion and atmosphere of architecture and the knowledge of sports psychology, to understand how atmosphere can be used to challenge current design conventions.

The approach will look at the relationship of facilities with and without local community involvement, when they are not being used for competitions. This allows the needs of the community, which have influence on the design, to be controlled. Therefore it allows for an athlete’s perspective to drive the design.

Using natatoriums as the focus of the thesis, a series of design investigations were conducted, looking at how these spaces can be developed and arranged to optimise athlete performance. Objectives are to understand the arrangement of program and atmosphere required at each stage of an athlete’s pre-competition process, so a facility can be developed that is biased towards an athlete’s mental state versus other design factors.

70

Responsive environments & robotics

supervisor: Tane moleta

71

0 5_ parametr i c d esign & di gi ta l agen cy Supervisors: Derek Kawiti Kevin Sweet Valentina Soana Marc Aurel Schnabel

Within the frameworks of the stream Parametric Design and Digital Agency, this research aims to open up a broad range of digital design opportunities and agendas around a chosen project or research problem identified by students.

As an explicitly digital stream it will look at ways that design research can be invoked through varying degrees of computational engagement. Generally speaking, the scope of the design-led research is to allow projects from all the disciplines of landscape, interiors, architecture and building science to develop critically through the use of digital tools, algorithmic thinking and computational techniques and methodologies. In this way the mode of the digital will act as a vehicle for their design projects.

Through its subject area this research is also technically implicated at the front end (design research) of a larger production and fabrication pipeline, through the course content offered up by Marc Schnabel and Kevin Sweet. Therefore it has the potential to act as a design engine that might be tested through the fabrication pipeline.

73

M. Arch (prof)

Katherine CampbellHunt

74

Parametric Design & Digital Agency

supervisor: DEREK KAWITI

75

M. Arch (prof)

Simon Gourley A place to play

The evolution of the stadium as a house for sports has been eternally linear and self-fulfilling as an architectural lineage. The typology cannot hide its connection to Louis Sullivan’s modernist principle ‘form follows function’ and the fact that the typology continues to produce similar edifices to those built by the Greeks more than two centuries ago.

In a world where we become more isolated and removed from our physical surroundings the percentage of time spent inactive continues to rise. All the while our cities continue to grow, land becomes harder to acquire and as a result, sporting facilities are pushed further from the accessible urban centres.

Having identified a lack of visibility of sports within New Zealand’s cities, this thesis proposes, through the design of a mixed use creative sporting complex and public park, an architecture that emerges from its physical and social environment to provide the community with a place to play – free for all to participate, observe, or pass through. The deliberate cross-programming of pedestrian traffic, sporting spaces, and a public park, combined with the prominent location, generates an environment of highly occupied, yet transient space.

The design methodology of the project is firmly rooted in the digital design movement, as this provides a new architectural paradigm to break away from the continually entrenched rhetoric of past parks, stadiums, and sports complexes.

With global populations steadily migrating to urban centres and cities, there is a need to protect and increase the availability of sporting spaces that can be freely enjoyed by all members of society.

We need new creative solutions to oppose the linear evolution of sporting architecture and rather than viewing parks and sporting facilities as two dimensional planar spaces, this multi-layered approach demonstrates the potential for increasing the availability of sporting space in cities.

76

Parametric Design & Digital Agency

supervisor: Derek Kawiti

77

0 6_ housi n g & publ i c infrastructur e Supervisors: Shenuka De Sylva Kulugammana Bruno Marques Andrew Charleson Resilient landscape infrastructure: spatial wide area iconic landscape vision The present time is marked by the commitment of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning, and building sciences with landscape. The landscape is assumed as the arena wherein everything happens – and mostly at one and the same time: new roads, railways, homes, wind farms and industrial areas compete for room with agriculture, recreation, animals and vegetation. This shift allows landscape to be placed at the forefront and inextricably linked to infrastructure systems.

Infrastructure systems are studied within the context of being integrated into the urban environment in ways that benefit the urban system, the inhabitants and the environment. We will focus on understanding how infrastructure functions and is managed, as well as how infrastructure is inserted into and integrated with the wider context of the landscape. The ability to perceive and understand the interconnectedness of landscape structures, systems, processes and

developments improve our ability to make decisions in landscape design and planning that fosters sustainable and resilient outcomes.

Morten Gjerde Medium density: maximum amenity This research recognises that the tensions between affordability and quality are a source of concern for the building industry, yet it is also under the influence of this tension that exciting and innovative solutions may be developed. The projects will aim to demonstrate innovative planning and design of multiple medium-density housing via applied site specific research methods and outcomes.

Chris McDonald Urban forms, suburban dreams In broad terms, this topic deals with six interconnected urban development themes: • New settlement patterns and lifestyles which intensify and integrate • Development potential of boundaries and other discontinuities in urban fabric • Settlement forms in suburban, ex-urban and semi-rural areas • Urban hybrids which explore new combinations of forms, spaces, activities and meanings • Movement and exchange including relationships between architecture and infrastructure • Issues emerging from a critical understanding of urban structure and history

79

Mla

Kurt Cole

The abundance of natural environments within New Zealand is under threat, unhindered profit-driven development is ever increasing, putting our landscapes at risk. A weak relationship with our land is currently resulting in detrimental development. In particular, designed infrastructure is often imposed on the landscape with little consideration for the effects it has on wider ecological systems. The degradation of our natural environment is spiralling out of control, landscape architecture has the potential to protect and enhance our natural environment through integrated design that benefits our natural systems and the people living within them.

This research aims to mitigate the adverse effects development has on the landscape through the use of naturally integrated water treatment infrastructure design. The cleansing abilities of natural wetlands are currently overlooked as precedents for design. An opportunity lies within the integration of natural wetlands and infrastructure, the outcome being new multipurpose landscapes. The fusion of water infrastructure and natural systems has the potential to not only mitigate adverse effects of current development, but also provide the public with diverse open spaces that support recreation and natural amenity.

Wairarapa Moana in the South Wairarapa is the site for this design research to take place. The abundance of public open spaces surrounding Lake Waiararapa, paired with the severe degradation of the water quality provide an opportunity for design research to explore possible solutions. The intention of this work is to diminish the harmful effects of development and poor land use in the area, resulting in the creation of natural spaces that have an underlying function of water treatment and fitting seamlessly into the sites wider ecological systems. The space will also cater for various recreational activities, providing the South Wairarapa with a new typology of landscape that is resilient and responsive to the natural flux of this unique lake system.

80

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Bruno Marques

81

M. Arch (prof)

Suraj Bala Kumar Facilitating policy: redefining terraced housing in Malaysia

The multi-ethnic tensions among the three main ethnics in Malaysia has a great impact on tolerance and political unity. The Bumiputera Policy gives privileges to the Malay ethnicity, which further strains this issue, dividing the nation. Recognising this, the government introduced the One Malaysia Policy as a possible solution to mitigating this issue, to promote equality and attaining unity in diversity. The ultimate purpose is to integrate Malaysians to cooperate in a mutually respectful manner, towards the development of Malaysia.

The inevitable consequences of short-sighted government policy, development and westernisation in Malaysia have negatively affected the cultural uniqueness of the three main ethnic communities. In domestic architecture, terraced houses have been a direct translation of western terraced housing. The influences from the West have diverted Malaysia’s sense of Asian culture. The objective of this study is to support the aims of this current One Malaysia Policy, by finding a solution to terraced housing, through the design of the One Malaysia Home.

This thesis looks at an adaptable home for multi-cultural families to live in and practise their unique cultures in a multi-ethnic community. The implementation of this design, is through research on case studies of the respective traditional houses of Malaysia’s three main ethnic groups. The main design consideration of this flexible home is a negotiated spatial organisation, looking at the theories that informed traditional houses.

This study further explores the cluster design of terraced housing in a multi-ethnic neighbourhood community. The traditional programs of shop house are reinstated for a common sense of belonging in the neighbourhood, which ultimately preserves Malaysia’s unique Asian culture and supports its international branding as ‘Malaysia truly Asia’.

82

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Shenuka de Sylva Kulugammana

83

M. Arch (prof)

Charles Collins Back ontrack: transit-oriented territories for Lyttelton’s waterfront

Ensuring the resilient development of a city and its community following a seismic upheaval is a difficult process, however, it presents a rare opportunity to reassess the frameworks in which the built environment is redeveloped.

Folowing the devastating 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, Christchurch’s port settlement of Lyttelton sustained significant urban and infrastructural damage. The disaster damaged critical port infrastructure, restricting the Lyttelton Port Company’s operational capacity and limiting the harbours vital contribution to driving the economic productivity, rebuild and the recovery of greater Christchurch.

As one of the largest infrastructural rebuilds in New Zealand’s history, the redevelopment of Lyttelton’s damaged harbour and township presents a most opportune circumstance in which to investigate and test infrastructure as an area of design inquiry.

Subsequently, the primary aim of this design-led research is to address infrastructural interventions that seek to organise and resolve the harbour’s contentious multi-modal, public and private operational contexts through proposing an inter-modal transport terminal and associated infrastructure for Lyttelton’s waterfront.

The terminal’s design capitalises on Lyttelton’s ability to host cruise ships and Christchurch’s resounding public desire for a commuter rail, through creating a single structure – a purposebuilt cruise berth, termina with community amenities and facilities for existing ferry services, with a commuter rail system connecting Lyttelton to Christchurch’s CBD. The design proposal delivers a transport infrastructure that is effective in organising territories and provides a case for the introduction of intermodal public transport systems as a means to regenerate and urbanise communities.

84

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Morten Gjerde

85

M. Arch (prof)

Anthony Green Rethinking the suburban shopping centre

Auckland is New Zealand’s fastest growing city. It continues to sprawl outwards, degrading the biodiversity of the natural systems.

Suburban shopping centres are the product of urban sprawl and they are now situated in central areas relative to the growing city. Their land is now more valuable than the surface car parking that occupies the majority of their sites and there is the opportunity to foster intensification. In addition, these centres no longer provide a new or exciting retail experience and the retail environments lack any point of difference between suburb to suburb, city to city and country to country.

This research explores three bodies of work: new urbanism; retail theory on theatrical experience; and eco-masterplanning.

It hypothesises that ecology has the ability to facilitate the hybridisation of new urban and retail environments, creating identity and a sense of place for an intensified suburban-centre. Ecology has the capacity to create a theatrical experience to re-imagine the retail environments towards environmentally-conscious consumption.

The inquiry contends that urban planning and development has fragmented the region’s natural systems, degrading the biodiversity of species that once occupied the built area. As we continue to consume more land and more commodities, we become removed from the environment, the thing that gives us life.

The outcome of this investigation is an urban masterplan and framework for Highland Park Shopping Centre, accommodating commercial, retail, recreational and residential activities in the form of a new suburban centre that reconnects and enhances the region’s natural systems. The centre becomes a catalyst for further intensification in its surrounding context. The strategies employed for the design can be replicated at other suburban centres allowing intensification to be enriched from the site’s ecology.

86

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Chris McDonald

87

MLA

Ashleigh Hunter Healing the land, healing the people Ko au te whenua, ko te whenua ko au

Natural systems throughout New Zealand that remain unharmed are in decline, this started in early European settlement with the introduction of new resources and a mind-set driven by economy. Pre-European New Zealand was a “land of bog, marsh, and peatlands,” resulting in the majority of the land cover being a large scale wetland. Over the past century, “ninety percent of these wetlands have been destroyed or significantly modified through draining and other anthropogenic activities, resulting in the degradation, and loss of significant landscapes” (Harmsworth, 2002).

This thesis brings to light Lake Wairarapa as the third largest lake in the North Island, that once held some of New Zealand’s most significant wetlands. The lake in its historic state reached 210 square-kilometres and today reaches a surface area of 78 squarekilometres. The drop in area was a loss due to the agriculture and horticulture industry, which have also become the primary sources of pollution, adding to the decline in quality and damage of the surrounding landscape.

The idea of healing is understood as a method primarily applied to a person; however it can be adapted to the land. Rongoa is the traditional Maori method practiced by tohunga (priest/expert), it is a way of living due to the weaving of nature, wairua (spirit) and people to form a realm of well-being. This study explores how Rongoa Maori can be an important tool for landscape restoration and explores how landscape architecture can be adapted to cultural concepts and in return be able to deal with certain infrastructural problems.

88

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Bruno Marques

89

M. Arch (prof)

Yuqi Kong Wander of life: an agora to facilitate elderly’s autonomous and connected life in Johnsonville

New Zealand is experiencing a demographic transitional period where there is an increasing percentage of elderly people.

International researchers and scholars have investigated architecture’s role in improving environments for the elderly, primarily for those with disabilities. However, these considerations often focus on the physical point of view and can be easily treated as after thoughts, sometimes still leaving the elderly in dilemmas.

As an attempt to respond to such an issue, this thesis asks if accessible architecture can enable the elderly to be included in public space, as community members rather than as an isolated group. It aims to explore the possibilities of creating accessible public space for elderly, which is also thoughtful towards other community members’ interactions. These explorations are set on the intersection of environmental gerontology and phenomenology, focused on making space accessibly to the elderly physically, sensorially and psychologically.

To re-introduce the elderly as community members who are as significant as other members, the diversity and complexity of their conditions and needs should be considered, which requires the design explorations to be site specific to avoid over generalisation. To contextualise the question, Johnsonville is chosen as the site for study, thus the character of local elderly can be considered for appropriate design iterations. To extend current design discourse about the role of architecture in the context of environmental gerontology, the theory of phenomenology and relevant case studies will be investigated. To highlight implications and limitations for elderly-accessible public space design, reflection will be made regarding the design explorations against the broader discursive arguments.

90

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Shenuka de Sylva Kulugammana

91

M. Arch (prof)

Alicia Lawrie Edge effect: the changes that occur at the boundary of two habitats

Whangarei City has a dying commercial centre. This has resulted from population shifts that have occurred over time. Significant urban issues have driven the movement of people toward much larger cities (seeking better economic, cultural and social outcomes), and more spacious urban fringes (seeking improved environmental outcomes).

The Whangarei central business district incorporates both the dying commercial centre and a thriving town basin which is the centre for arts and recreation within the city. The two areas are in juxtaposition to each other.

The investigation reveals reasons why two such contrasting areas exist and defines a design solution that seeks to resolve this, and leverages the success of the town basin to revive the commercial centre. The aim of this thesis is to investigate ways that architecture can be used to invigorate Whangarei’s dying commercial centre by creating a place of activity, engagement and informal learning by reestablishing the important connection Whangarei has with its river, as well as other positive aspects of the city.

The thesis objectives include: •

Identify the reasons for the decline of the commercial centre and the success of the town basin and identify how a connection can be established between the two.

•

Establish a beating heart within the dying commercial centre and provide a life source in the form of people movement into the centre from all parts of the city.

• Provide dynamic spaces which encourage informal learning,

social interaction, playfulness and creativity that will

engage the people of Whangarei, including youth and children.

•

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Use the natural environment as a means of engaging people of all ages by weaving together water, a restored ecology and architecture.

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Shenuka de Sylva Kulugammana

93

M. Arch (prof)

Katrina Lees Shaking the norm: structural retrofitting beyond the minimum

Due to changing regulations, many buildings in New Zealand do not have adequate seismic resisting structure. There is a real need to structurally retrofit these buildings before the next severe earthquake. Structural retrofits are often driven by structural and economic purposes, not architectural considerations. As a result, the architectural integrity of some buildings is jeopardized, and the opportunity to add value and character is overlooked.

This thesis proposes that the architecture of earthquakeprone buildings can be enhanced through structural retrofitting.

It aims to encourage earthquake-prone building owners to take the opportunities presented by structural retrofitting to add architectural value. The research shows how by retrofitting, adapting and extending buildings based on their site contexts, they can be brought to life, creating a sense of place. The intention is for the additional structure required in the retrofits to drive the adaption and extensions to create new and improved architectural spaces, while the form and detailing of the retrofit structure will enhance the character of spaces.

This thesis focuses on Wellington’s CentrePort. The proposal is to retrofit two of its earthquake-prone buildings: Maritime House and MSC House. Their structural inadequacy, fragmented nature and lack of character provide the opportunity to use the structural retrofits to rejuvenate the area.

Through iterative research, the design outcomes of Maritime House and MSC House show structural retrofitting through an architectural approach will create richer environments than through purely economic motives. The structural retrofit of Maritime House adapts it into a restaurant and extends the building, adding a rooftop bar and outdoor seating. The structural retrofit of MSC House reestablishes it as an office space, making an architectural statement along the main road, as well as introducing accommodation to the additional two floors. These retrofits not only transform the buildings, but their surroundings as well, reinvigorating the character of the CentrePort.

94

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Andrew Charleson

95

M. Arch (prof)

Lisa McClintock Reclaiming social space: adapting neighbourhoods to support an ageing population

How might inner-suburban Wellington neighbourhoods be adapted to alleviate loneliness among older residents and provide greater opportunity for ageing within the community?

Experts predict that by 2050 approximately one quarter of New Zealand’s population will be aged sixty-five years and over. It follows that aged care and housing are more topical than ever. Despite this, alternative models of housing the elderly – solutions other than purpose-built retirement villages and rest homes – remain relatively underexplored by design professionals.

A significant body of research now affirms that older adults prefer to age in their own homes and communities if possible.

Emotional attachment to place can contribute to wellbeing in old age, and studies have shown a strong connection between community integration and resilience in the face of adversity.

However, in spite of the advantages of ageing in place, problems with this option still exist. An Australian survey found the leading worry of elderly people living at home to be loneliness and isolation.

In a 2012 study, fifty-two percent of respondents aged sixty-five and older living in New Zealand communities reported feeling lonely to some extent. These and other findings suggest that social and emotional needs are highly important to older adults and unfortunately, existing housing in the community currently does not meet these needs.

This research focuses on the relationship between the built environment and loneliness in older age. It proposes one solution for retrofitting social space into our existing neighbourhood structure – a shared yard which provides a range of opportunities for spontaneous social engagement, and promotes accessible and inclusive environmental design as best practice for any new build.

Architectural intervention of this kind could help alleviate loneliness among the elderly and other community-dwelling groups who are at risk by strengthening communal ties, encouraging ownership of place, and fostering a sense of belonging.

96

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Shenuka de Sylva Kulugammana

97

M. Arch (prof)

Angela Melville The gateway to the south: enhancing connectivity between port and town

Rapid change, growth and masterplanning within the ferry industry all play a vital role in anticipating land and infrastructural needs. Optimisation of the interface between a roll-on/roll-off (RORO) vessel and the shore is essential to ensure optimum traffic flow for fast operation. Due to a ferry ports’ autonomous authority, coupled with their size and infrastructural needs, they often develop without much consideration of connecting to the neighbouring town.

As a result, the spatial hierarchy between port and town has become imbalanced. This thesis explores how large scale ferry ports and associated industrial developments have disrupted the connectivity between port and town.

The project proposes: a large-scale urban masterplan, complemented by four architectural interventions; a designed edge along a developed marina consisting of hotels, retail and townhouses; a drawbridge linking the town to the port via the water’s edge; a re-design of the Edwin Fox boat shed and museum; and an architecturally-resolved ferry terminal, all speculatively sited in Picton. The design re-establishes a relationship between port and township by creating a series of journeys and pathways, enhancing connectivity, integration and accessibility between port and town.

98

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Chris McDonald

99

MLA

Maria Rodgers Leaving a trail: revealing heritage in a rural landscape

Leaving a trail investigates how landscape architecture can reveal heritage and connect Maori and Pakeha to the land and to the past in rural Aotearoa (New Zealand). Our rural landscapes contain rich and varied stories, which, if interpreted and made stronger by being linked together, have the potential to create cultural and recreational assets as well as tourist drawcards.

A starting point was the six sites identified by the Wairarapa Moana Management Team as sites for development. The first design ‘hunch’ remained the touchstone of the project. With the six sites forming an ‘inner necklace,’ the aim of this project became creating an ‘outer necklace’ of revealed heritage sites – a heritage trail. Of the twenty six trail sites, most are already marked and eleven are unmarked. Research into how to reveal these unmarked sites saw three different approaches used.

This thesis was inspired by the depth of Maori connection to the land. Maori consider that the natural world is able to ‘speak’ to humans. The method chosen for this design research is based on Christophe Girot’s Four Trace Concepts in Landscape Architecture.

Girot is interested in methods and techniques that expand landscape projects beyond the amelioration of sites and towards the reactivation of their cultural dimensions. As part of this research is to enable connection with the cultural dimensions of sites, or to “hear the site speak,” his method was chosen as a starting point.

It was shaped by the experience of this research to form a new method: Four Listening Acts in Landscape Architecture. Through such methods landscape architects can grow their relationship with the land and design better with the land, for the landscape and its people.

100

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Bruno Marques

101

M. Arch (prof)

Rory Tungatt Architecture as a catalyst for activity

Many of New Zealand’s smaller town centres struggle to remain viable. A common issue for these declining public realms is the hollowing out of their city centres. Numerous factors may contribute to this problem. Issues include a lack of access, connectivity and identity within the urban fabric, or instances of privatisation, where forums that were once public have now shifted to a digital interface.

One of the challenges facing cities is the diminishing number of civic buildings and activity located in the town centre. The Indoor Community Sports Centre (ICSC) offers a partial remedy for this problem. Even with the merging and downsizing of councils and their funding, territorial authorities continue to invest in ICSCs. This thesis investigates whether these buildings can make a positive contribution to the public domain of town centres.

New Zealand ICSC’s, more often than not, are simple shed-like buildings on the periphery of cities or town centres, predominantly occupying or adjacent to large park areas, sports fields or schools.

This thesis examines whether the building type can be adapted to become an “urban” building, where it will have the opportunity contribute to a revitalised town centre.

A design case study based in Upper Hutt identifies three key design criteria established from initial research of sports centres and best-practice urban design. These three criteria – breaking up mass, active edges from the outside and creating a dynamic connection – allow the ICSC to become part of the civic realm.

The research concludes that an ICSC can be successfully integrated into an urban context.

In the Upper Hutt case study, success depends on two broader design strategies. First, the ICSC should be located in an area where walkability, functionality and visual and physical connectivity will benefit the public domain. Secondly, the ICSC should be part of a mixed-use development, which exploits the building types’ inherent flexibility. This is achieved through combining a transport hub, another essential civic amenity, as well as other commercial programs that provide occupancy during periods of disuse.

The thesis shows how a carefully adapted ICSC can turn a somewhat disconnected, hollowed out town into a functional, integrated and walkable one. The redesigned facility does so by linking existing amenities, feeding city-fringe activity back into the city centre and projecting a consciousness of place.

102

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Chris McDonald

103

M. Arch (prof)

Matthew Wenden Revisiting the hillside: organic, aggregative medium density housing in a Wellington hillside environment.

The Conzen School of Urban Morphology, as identified by Kostof in his book The City Shaped, is a western way of looking at parcels of land, lots and the street grid from above, in a geometric manner imposed on the land. This model of analysis and development lends itself to flat sites and separated, isolated developments, and forms the basis for the existing model of development in western colonial nations. This thesis investigates whether an alternate development approach based on aggregative design can provide a viable alternative to the standard model of medium-density housing found in New Zealand.

Investigations of the New Urbanists or Christopher Alexander’s New Theory of Urban Design could seek to address a new way of approaching these sites using organic geometries and accumulative principals. Accompanying and informing this approach are case studies of vernacular cycladic architecture to frame the organic design principals proposed. Here I am referring to ‘organic’ as having two main attributes: accumulative development and informal geometry.

In balance with the cycladic case study, the thesis addresses the cultural barriers to acceptance of this model of development in a New Zealand context, particularly with reference to the aspects of privacy, space, view and shared space in a higher-density environment. This thesis develops a methodological approach to testing the aggregative nature of development and simulates this through the use of in-studio design exercises. These exercises are a combination of external input from other designers and internal single author input. The final design outcome addresses the results of this simulation, the design principals, guidelines and rules, rather than producing a stand-alone design artefact.

104

Housing & Public Infrastructure

supervisor: Chris McDonald

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0 7_ b ui ldi ng techn olo gy & materi als Supervisors: Guy Marriage Morten Gjerde

This stream seeks beauty and logic in the architectural realm. The supervisors bring design practice experience from different scales – components, furniture, interiors, architecture and urban planning. Their common philosophy being the melding of the poetic and pragmatic.

The interest in materials and architectural technology is not intended to supplant other important spatial design activities and goals. Instead, it may be that students can incorporate thinking about these matters early on to drive their design development. It is also intended that students will progress their spatial design proposals at a pace that will enable issues of detail and making to be explored within the allowable time frames.

107

M. Arch (prof)

Brett Nicholas Great expectations

There are guide books, journal articles, scholarly papers, conference proceedings, text books and industry practice notes to educate architects on how they should undertake all manner of business. There is, however, no dynamically evolving and accessible guide for clients to follow when embarking on selecting an architect for a residential project. This thesis does not target architects although it affects them - but the typical client looking to embark on perhaps the biggest investment of their lives: a newly built home.

This research will no doubt divide its audience: those who practice and those who preach: those who actively participate and those who critique: those who reinforce the stereotype, and those who abolish it: those who create expectations and those who deliver.

Unrealistic expectations, troublesome stereotypes and misinformation has led to a reputation architects have struggled with, or are unwilling to shake. Jointly, this is hampering the ability of architects to engage with the greater population in the suburban residential sector. How can architects gain a greater foothold in the residential sector?

This thesis aims to act as a guide for what can be implemented by the New Zealand Institute of Architects. Collaboration of its members has the potential to change the suburban landscape and ensure that architects remain prominent and current. But more importantly, it is hoped that implementation will lead to an increase in engagement in the residential sector.

As lofty as this reads, implementation will make architects more accessible to the greater population. Exemplars relevant to specific clients, presented accurately in an immersive environment will keep expectations in check. Stereotypes can be broken by an increased engagement with a wider audience. Education of the public will demystify the roles architects play and a framework to facilitate this will encourage diversity in the suburb.

108

Building Technologies & Materials

supervisor: Guy Marriage

109

M. Arch (prof)

James Willis

On February 22, 2011 a 6.3-magnitude-earthquake struck the Canterbury region, causing widespread damage to both Christchurch city and surrounding areas. The quake devastated the city, taking lives and causing significant damage to building and land infrastructure, both in the inner city and the eastern suburbs.

While there has been significant investment and redevelopment within the central city, many of the eastern areas have been neglected. Over 7000 homes have been demolished in the eastern residential red zone, leaving a large swathe of land which stretches from the edge of the city centre to New Brighton. With such significant infrastructure being lost much of the city has shifted west, with further developments being planned on the outskirts of the city, adding to the existing problem of planned urban sprawl that had begun long before 2011.

This thesis explores options for the eastern residential red zone, building upon existing proposals to turn the area into an urban forest – letting the area return to a natural state and transforming it into a place where the city celebrates the environment, rather than fighting against it. What happens on the edge of this emerging green space will be key to how the eastern suburbs begin to recover postearthquake and also how successfully this space is integrated into a city with a changing identity.

At an urban scale, the proposal explores options for the edge of this developing green space through the development of six nodes or ‘guardians of the park’. These nodes draw from Peter Calthorpe’s theory of the pedestrian pocket, creating a series of interconnected areas of intensification that stretch from the edge of the Central Business District following the Avon River to New Brighton. Each node is walking distance from significant transport infrastructure and intended to reinforce the city’s connection with the green space, through a form of mixed-use development with housing, light retail and a number of recreational facilities.

Through these nodes the design case study explores the potential for architecture on the edge of this green corridor to be increased in density and stimulate more significant redevelopment in the east, though providing access to this new amenity. It explores access to and connection with both open space and recreational activity, incorporating theories of increased density housing development and public transport.

110

Building Technologies & Materials

supervisor: Morten Gjerde

111

0 8_ comm un it y & co rpo rat e spheres Supervisors: Christina MacKay Natasha Perkins Joanna Merwood-Salisbury

113

M. Arch (prof)

Daniel Crooks Transition: an exploration of spatial flexibility in primary schools

This research aims to develop a design model for a future primary school in New Zealand (NZ), which promotes flexibility and privileges the role of outdoor learning environments within a child centred approach to education. The NZ public primary school typology is undergoing a period of reform in response to current global pedagogical developments. This has lead the Ministry of Education (MOE), architects and designers to develop a ‘large open plan’ studio approach to current educational typology. Often creating expansive space in which educationalist must shape environments of learning through ‘flexible furniture’ layouts.

This thesis highlights the importance of architectural flexibility to the design of primary schools, as well as the importance of external environments for learning. It is proposed that there should be a more engaging solution between pedagogical development and future primary school contexts within NZ. The design case study (DCS) proposes an active environment of interaction that is capable of transition to engage multiple axis of site and community connectivity. The nature of the design case study pushes away from current trends of the ‘large open plan’ studio, and activates façade enabling spatial and environmental engagement.

In plan, a flexible use of space is provided so that the school community can shape space to their needs and desires. Site and community can be viewed as a continuation of the classroom, as highlighted by principles of a Holistic approach to education. The chosen site for the DCS was selected due to its topological location and relationships with is neighbours as well as its involvement in the Christchurch School Rebuild Programme. Overall, the research in response to current pedagogical ideals, proposes a flexible outdoor learning orientated school complex is a desirable alternative to the ‘large open plan’ studio.

114

Community & Corporate Spheres

supervisor: Christina Mackay

115

MIA

Zakary Dittmer Revitalising the heart: addressing the vacant CBD of Rotorua

The issue of abandoned retail stores is one that is evident throughout the country and at different scales throughout the world. The appearance leaves main streets and central business districts looking tired and run down and does little to benefit the local economy. As international corporations become more popular in provincial cities, the desire for big-box buildings and malls in the suburbs pull department stores away from their central locations.

The result is high building vacancies and poor community moral.

Looking to new theories around urban interior architecture, this research explores the boundary between internal and external design methods and pushes for a merger of the design disciplines to create a coherent spatial context for all. In order to repopulate the city, human based design methods are explored to encourage social interactions and habitation of the many vacant sites.

Through the use of site-specific design, Rotorua will be investigated to understand the reasoning for the abandoned stores and will look to the urban context to identify potential remedies to solve the neglect. Combined with placemaking and culture the identity of Rotorua will inform the design response to bring the community back into the heart of the central city.

116

Community & Corporate Spheres

supervisor: Christina Mackay

117

MIA

Kristin Kilgour Elevation: an exploration of interior installation designed for multiple sites while disregarding site context

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Society should not outlive the architecture surrounding it; this research proposes an alternative solution to demolition, for empty, existing architecture that could prolong the life span of buildings. It is recommended that to achieve this the design shall need to offer the existing architecture support for what it is lacking. It is identified that an empty building shell lacks a use for the space. The intent is to prove a method for repurposing these historic buildings by adopting the architectural theory of designing without context as a design driver, to achieve interesting and innovative responses.

Community & Corporate Spheres

supervisor: Natasha Perkins

119

M. Arch (prof)

Connie Ling Integrated social learning: central business district office building and early childcare centre

The convenience of early childhood centres (ECE) near guardians’ work places creates a need to look into the integration of ECEs into central business districts (CBD) where most office buildings are located.

This requires investigation on how the integration of ECE into office buildings can change office building designs, to meet children’s learning requirements. The design in this research aims to explore potential situations where this integration could happen.

The aim of this thesis is to develop ways that mixed-age early childcare centres can be integrated in to office buildings within the CBD. This integration is explored by analysing strategies of office building design that can be applied to support children’s learning and interaction in the office environment: atriums could give children wider social learning experiences; circulation paths could be a social and visual learning space for mobile children as they transition from a play space to another; outdoor spaces are required for children’s learning but could also be adults’ outdoor workspaces; and facade design should enhance the outdoor space and also add a creative touch to it.

Overall, this thesis aims to support the integration of early childcare centres in office buildings within CBDs.

120

Community & Corporate Spheres

supervisor: Christina Mackay

121

M. Arch (prof)

Vincent Woon

This thesis focuses on the architecture of the ‘floating villages’ of China which accommodate a floating population. The floating village is an informal settlement of migrant workers which develops around construction sites. The village provides services such as food, entertainment, medical care and recycling to the construction workers. However, as a pseudo-urban typology accommodating many of the functions of a town, it lacks one important element: a focused communal area. The absence of deliberately designed communal space has led to social tensions within the floating village, due to the different cultural origins of the migrant workers. Migrant workers arrive to floating villages without knowledge of urban culture or communal support. Varying migrant traditions and accents, alongside struggles with poverty, create issues and friction between different groups of workers.

This thesis proposes a temporary and portable architectural intervention within the floating village, which fosters a positive community. The research achieves this through the exploration of community building via Dr Robert D. Putnam’s understanding of social capital. The design proposal explores the architectural dialogues expression of public space, which organises and encourages inter- and intra-relationships. In order to succeed, these architectural expressions must share the same characteristics of temporality and portability. Finally, the intervention will analyse the portable and temporary architectural typologies in order to travel alongside the other nomadic elements of the floating village.

122

Community & Corporate Spheres

supervisor: Joanna Merwood-Salisbury

123

Mia

Rebecca Wyborn

This thesis explores how co-working offices emerged as a solution to the shift in the social expectations of the workplace. It studies how the rise in the number of freelancers and entrepreneurs has resulted in the materialisation of co-working offices. It examines how co-working offices offer flexibility in terms of membership plans, but how their interior environments do not yet reflect this. In short it aims to investigate how these workplace interiors can adapt to meet residents needs.

This research embraces the multi-functionality of the co-working office and the demands of residents who occupy these spaces.

Three local case studies and international precedents are explored which give insight and offer opportunities on materiality, site context and multi-functional spaces. It explores how to engage residents by challenging how best to design co-working offices. This project considers the requirements of the co-working office and how co-working interiors are occupied throughout the day. The design proposes a kit of parts ‘space making’ solution, which enables coworking offices to meet resident’s needs.

This research contributes to the limited published discussion of understanding interior space in the context of co-working offices. This research explores through interior architecture, how co-working offices can be designed to reflect its resident’s individual ways of working and co-workings varying spatial needs. Although based around co-working spaces, the researcher recognises the implications for findings based around corporate office environments.

124

Community & Corporate Spheres

supervisor: Natasha Perkins

125

0 9_ theo ry & hi story Supervisors: Andrew Charleson Joanna Merwood-Salisbury Liz Aston

Peter Wood Disciplinary vision and architectural seeing Historical and theoretical approaches to architectural design research examine the epistemological underpinnings of architecture as an intellectual, and well as professional, disciplinary activity. They seek to creatively define, examine and challenge the prevailing borders of architectural knowledge in the interests of extending accepted practice (historic method) through discursive practice (critical method).

This stream is committed to exploring the structures of institutional representation in the interests of identifying new knowledge and emergent views.

127

M. Arch (prof)

Ellie Compton The grand urbicolous hotel

Christchurch is a tabula rasa. Awaiting experiences and impressions – both human and built – to inform the inevitably changed image of the city. The February 2011 earthquakes resulted in empty lots piled high with broken spires, stone chimneys and rich timber interiors. The rebuilding process allows architects an opportunity to contribute to Canterbury’s architectural journey and ensure that the vision of the city prioritises integrity and community rather than time and budget.

Much of a city’s architecture contributes to the overall understanding of place, home and heritage. These spatial and experiential qualities impact the atmosphere within a city and result in a (dis)-connection within various cultural communities.

The motivation behind this design-led research is to establish whether an architectural intervention (haunted by the spectre of Benjamin Mountfort) can combine revolutionary 19th century ideals with the contemporary social needs of Christchurch to stand as an example of the city’s cultural and architectural identity.

High Street in Christchurch stands as a powerful axial connection between the CBD and the central grid that connects the inner suburbs. It provides an opportunity for development that educates these communities through architecture grounded in the early visions of Canterbury’s most revolutionary architect, Benjamin Mountfort.

This research rebuilds and revitalises a city’s cultural, spiritual and physical identity. This is tested through design explorations informed by Mountfort’s architectural values and his calculated vision for Canterbury. Initial design explorations assist in the understanding of Mountfort’s physical aspirations for the city, including irregularity, interaction, purpose, medieval influence, height and timber as a primary resource. In development, the understanding of the formal qualities within Mountfort’s values informed an iterative process of model making. This lead to a deeper understanding of the values that shape social, spiritual and architectural images of Canterbury.

The design produced as a result of this research, encompasses opportunity to connect to our architectural past, present and future.

Through the presence of Mountfort, Christchurch’s identity is recaptured through the unique programmatic qualities of a boutique hotel.

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theory & history

supervisor: peter wood

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M. Arch (prof)

Jenneke Kurtz Ideal architecture unit: vacant offices into desirable student housing

The architectural quality of student housing in New Zealand is a growing concern. Students often accept living in damp and mouldy flats as ‘a rite of passage.’ The environment students live in directly impacts how they think and feel, and ultimately how they succeed at university. Those students fortunate enough to live in University Halls are only provided with basic facilities that cater to the ‘typical student’ rather than their individual field of study and personal differences. This research proposes that we exceed current expectations and practice, firstly through designing accommodation based on students area of study and, secondly through prefabricated design of a single ‘ideal unit’ adapted to suit a specific site.

Specific design for architecture students will be explored, due to higher housing demands than most students. Establishing what makes architecture students different from other students is essential in order to cater to these needs. These are both physical and intellectual needs, ranging from facilities to the need for architectural delight. Prefabrication allows faster construction and lower costs, however, this design method has resulted in ‘copy and paste’ architecture that is monotonous and without excitement.

An ‘ideal unit’ with a small number of variations allows no two users to have the exact same experience. The work of Le Corbusier is explored, in particular the Modular. Which is applicable to modern design and should be used, to ensure we build for the human body rather than arbitrary measurements. The outcome is a prefabricated unit designed for a Wellington site, with the ability to be applied elsewhere. This research comments and critiques current institutional student housing practices, while advocating for a change to all student accommodation. What we study and how we live are so intertwined that we can no longer ignore the needs associated with what we study – we must design for it.

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theory & history

supervisor: peter wood

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Mia

Laura Marsh Reimagining the museum

Modern day museums are more than a place to preserve artefacts of human achievements and natural history. Museums have proceeded to become amusement parks of our past, present and future to educate and inspire the young and old as well as accommodating our human artistic contribution. A public monument, art sculpture, and a representation of social change giving the location destination architecture and the visitors a memorable experience. With this, the functional needs of preserving delicate works of our history become challenged by the architect’s aesthetic representations. Limitations of exhibit design, restrict interior architectural movements but open up opportunities to orchestrate a dialogue between gallery spaces.

Vital to a modern museum is the experience of its interior.

The aim of this thesis is to explore circulation systems within a complex, multi-storey hybrid architecture. The project begins with the proposed design for the National Museum of New Zealand, submitted by Ian Athfield and Frank Gehry. As this design did not proceed from its conceptual design, it then offers a ‘blank canvas’ to explore the interior of what could have been New Zealand’s national museum.

A limited amount of documentation and representation of the proposal – which only addresses the overall formation and exterior of the building – provides a most advantageous concept for an interior architect to take full control. For no component of this design (arrangement, form, access points) is complete until it has established its interior. Realising that the experience of the interior provokes a greater emotional response than that of the exterior, the exterior is only complete once the interior succeeds in its form.

Adopting the outline of the original design brief, a museum will be designed in reference to the national identity of New Zealand.

This thesis will focus on reviving Athfield and Gehry’s proposal and develop it to be welcomed in to the twenty-first century. The idea of blessing New Zealand with a structure as iconic as Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao is an idea that simply cannot be ignored.

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Theory & History

supervisor: Peter Wood

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M. Arch (prof)

Sarah McKenzie Towards a public gallery: exploring threshold fear and social behaviour in art gallery design

This thesis seeks to address how the public art gallery can be redesigned in response to the social and psychological problem of ‘threshold fear,’ reaffirming the visitor’s sense of belonging and reconnecting the exhibition of art with a wider range of possible public narratives.

The term ‘threshold fear’ identifies social behaviour that creates a negative relationship between built space (in this case the art gallery) and the body (mentally and physically). The perception of the art gallery as a foreign building is common to many: it projects a sense of intimidation to many members of the general public. The modern art gallery is, in this sense, undermined by preconceived notions of exclusivity and privilege whereby the building itself reinforces ideas of class difference.

In critical response to the traditional art gallery typology, a design-led investigation will address and redirect the public’s social behaviour within this unfamiliar built environment. An experimental gallery will challenge both the typical exhibition narrative and the relationship between the building and the body. Focusing on redirecting the public’s spatial receptivity through external programmes, human behaviour will be explored in order to identify and reconnect a sense of personal belonging and welcome without the sensation of ‘threshold fear.’

Deprived of any real cultural significance, Queenstown is an appropriate site for a key cultural venue such as an art gallery, exposing a wider local and international population to New Zealand’s diverse art collections. Re-adjusting the typical gallery structure in an effort to maximise public attendance will be further heightened with exposure to national and international treasures by the means of loaning artworks from Te Papa’s extensive collection.

This thesis argues that ‘threshold fear’ can be redirected through critical attention to the physical relationship between the human body and the gallery, that architecture may reaffirm the rights of entry and belonging. The result will be a contemporary public art gallery in Queenstown with improved mass participation, resulting in greater social advancement for the local community and for visitors.

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Theory & History

supervisors: Joanna Merwood-Salisbury

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M. Arch (prof)

Anneke Prins Spatial pressure: the manipulation of fluid space through the hybridization of art and architecture.

Spatial Pressure: the manipulation of fluid space through the hybridization of art and architecture was a yearlong creative practice research endeavour that employed a hybridiation of sculptural art practice methodology and architectural design to form a new type of affective architecture – termed as spatially affective artarchitecture. The thesis argued for a reintegration of the body into architecture through the central method of the creation of human scale, sculptural yet pragmatic, spatial interventions.

In affect theory, knowledge of the body’s interaction with space and other bodies, and reaction to atmosphere is essential to the understanding of a spatial environment. Knowledge of the body and of spatial relationships are inherent to the architectural discipline and yet art practice is often more successful at challenging and manipulating affective responses. While architecture promotes affective responses from those who inhabit, or move through, built forms, might we employ art practice to enhance these spatial reactions?

By engaging with sculptural practices to create publicly activated, art-architecture, the hybridized interventions acted to push and pull space and encourage movement through spatial pressure. In this work the observation of the body’s response to these interventions was analysed and reinterpreted with each design move, avoiding direct representation of the body. The body moved, the spatial interventions were static; it was the ‘in-between’ that provided the affective condition.

Working in a liminal zone between two disciplines created challenges and opportunities to enhance affective influences and opened the possibility of altering current norms of architectural practice and research.

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theory & history

supervisors: Joanna Merwood-Salisbury

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M. Arch (prof)

Rosie Smith

The detail in contemporary architectural practice is associated with construction processes via working drawings which aim to specify, prescript and direct the building. The detail is, in this sense, a visual representation that describes the assembly of the building and serves to strengthen communications between the architect and the builder. The implementation of detail in this context, however, has resulted in the disengagement of detailing as a design practice as is cemented by the placement of ‘detailed design’ at the culmination of the widely accepted established design methodology, the typical ‘design process.’ In this process ‘detailed design’ does not commence until the actual designing – the creative decision making – is completed, resulting in a disengagement from the detail as a design tool and channel of communication between architect and building occupant.

This research is an advocacy for the equality of the detail in design practice. It advocates for an extension of its capabilities beyond that of representations of construction to establish meaningful active dialogues between the architect and building occupant. The world of boats are referred to throughout for they are seen as typology in which the connection between detail, designer, occupant and built entity has never been lost. In the world of boats to detail is to clean, repair, replace, maintain and polish the vessel; to actively engage with the architecture.

In response to this, the proposed design (sited in St Marys Bay, Auckland) presents a highly individualised dwelling which replicates aquatic conditions and supports the ingrained maritime routines of a retired sailor not dissimilar to Johnny Wray, the author and main character of South Sea Vagabonds. The detail is employed as a device for storytelling throughout the house to communicate the nostalgic stories of life as a vagabond of the sea through coordinated tactile interactions and visual associations.

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theory & history

supervisor: peter wood

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V i cto r i a U n i v e rs i t y o f W e ll i n gto n_ S ch o o l o f Ar ch i t ect u r e Postal address School of Architecture Victoria University PO Box 600 Wellington 6140 Physical address 139 Vivian Street Te Aro Campus Wellington Website victoria.ac.nz/fad Phone +64 4 463 6200 Booklet Hannah Wolter

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