2012 Architecture School VUW

Architecture School

MArch(Prof)/MIA/MLA

Design Research at VUW

M.Arch(Prof)/MIA/MLA 2012

DESIGN RESEARCH @ VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON

DESIGN RESEARCH @ VUW captures the work of graduating MArch(Prof),

MIA and MLA students at VUW’s School of Architecture. Thesis Studio is the culmination of academic preparation for the professions of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Professional practice is increasingly research-led, so the students’ final year of study is devoted to self-directed designled inquiry. The outcome is a coherent, rigorous and well-resolved design project which demonstrates mastery of a particular aspect of the discipline. The research is informed by a theoretical or technological perspective, but the primary evidence for the research proposition is obtained through the medium of design and the subsequent exegesis.

In 2012, the Thesis Studio comprised nine different streams which addressed subjects as diverse as parametric design and resilience to catastrophic events.

Each stream corresponds to an established research cluster within the School of Architecture. Academic staff direct the studio groups, and offer potential areas of inquiry. However, students quickly take command of the work as they become experts in their chosen topic.

Thesis Studio introduces students to a broader scholarly and professional community, and the Thesis project often segues into employment as a specialist practitioner in the design industry. As Master’s graduates, the authors of these schemes are not just “job-ready”: they are able to take a leadership role within an emerging area of practice. For these reasons, students are encouraged to disseminate their research findings. This occurs within the School through an annual series of seminars and exhibitions. DESIGN RESEARCH @ VUW provides an opportunity to communication new knowledge to a wider audience.

Master’s Thesis students have an unprecedented opportunity to define the scope and direction of their work. This freedom is both exhilarating and confronting, and it leads to fresh thinking which expand the boundaries of practice. Insight and innovation begins by asking a new question. This year, the range of research topics is immense: from Martin Powell’s investigation of suburban columbaria to Sacha Constable’s transformation of Christchurch’s “Red Zone” into an edgy green corridor; and from Hannah Wolter’s “taxonomy of shadow” to Philip Belesky’s bringing non-formal concerns to computational design. The School of Architecture is proud to introduce these ideas into current discourse on architecture and design.

Thesis Studio Coordinator: Chris McDonald Supervisors:

Penny Allan Daniel Brown Philippe Campays Tobias Danielmeier Sam Kebbell Christine McCarthy Chris McDonald Tane Moleta Jules Moloney Peter Wood

Jose de Guzman

MArch (Prof)

Intimate Vastness:

Engaging the dichotomy of landscape and built.

New Zealand Institute of Architects – Graphisoft Student Design Awards Finalist

This project looks at the fundamental relationship between landscape and the built, enhancing the engagement of isolated landscapes and increasing the accessibility physically and experientially. Specifically, the project utilises the program of a winery and tasting facility at the site of the Te Muna Valley (appropriately the Maori translation of ‘secret place’) in Martinborough as a vehicle for which to challenge the experience of the ‘isolated landscape.’

New Zealanders claim a deep connection to the land; however, in architecture it is not evident. As a response, the architecture looks at how people are drawn to the romantic notions of wine and its production, and the associated characteristics of the local environment; or as the industry call it, “terroir”. The design process has essentially been driven by site response. It is a relatively flat monotonous plateau adorned with acres and acres of vineyards. The architecture is placed right at the edge of the plateau, embedded into the escarpment. The building occupies an exaggerated edge

within the landscape situated between the plateau and valley, which is visually argues the position that “landscape is landscape” and “architecture is architecture,” rather than attempting to fuse one into the other. As a result, the building manifests itself as a monumental rectilinear form as a way of emphasising the contours of the land.

Internally, the path through the building beginning from plateau to valley runs parallel to the programmatic arrangement from Back of House to Front of House as a way of showcasing the rituals of wine production. Through the chronological journey through the spaces, the building envelope progressively opens out into the landscape using framing as a device to lead people through. To summarise, the building behaves as a continuum that negotiates between the vastness outside and the intimacy inside.

Supervisor:Tobias Danielmeier

Duncan Harding ARCI 482

(Re)Constructing History:

Drawing the Christchurch Cathedral from Text New Zealand Institute of Architects – Graphisoft Student Design Awards Finalist

Intangible heritage is a theory and practice within heritage discourse that argues for the conservation of intangible or immaterial cultural and social practices, rather than the preservation of tangible, physical objects. Currently, intangible heritage is used mainly for conserving performative practices such as dance, cooking, and oral languages.

Its application in architectural heritage—a discipline focused heavily on the retention of built physical fabric—is under tested, despite its particular relevance to many non-western cultures which often prioritise the immaterial and spiritual qualities of a building over the physical built form. The use for intangible heritage recently became apparent in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, following the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. Much of Christchurch’s built heritage was damaged or destroyed during the earthquakes, or demolished as a make-safe strategy. As such, it is only the written heritage of many of these buildings that remains. This project explores the intangible heritage of one specific building, the Christchurch Cathedral Church

of Christ, otherwise known as the Christchurch Anglican Cathedral.

Severely damaged by the earthquakes and subsequently in the process of ‘deconstruction’, the building’s heritage is now more significant in written form from a heritage perspective. This project takes intangible heritage, recorded in written accounts of the building, as a basis for designing a reconstruction of the cathedral. In other words, the project reconstructs the cathedral from text, rather than from the physical building.

Supervisor:ChristineMcCarthy

Grace Mills MArch (Prof)

Re: Centering

Deliberating the architecture of our emergent urban sub-centres New Zealand Institute of Architects – Graphisoft Highly Commended Award

SITE PLAN a village green

a public forum

a typological town square

a rarefied intensity

19

a suburban microcosm

2

sports practices per week

hectares of green space

18

16

times the current density of Sumner

condominiums

64

1027

dwellings

chance encounters per day

2

markets every weekend

Recent urban development has progressively moved away from traditional ‘mono-centric’ models towards polycentric ones: cities are increasingly comprised not of a centre but multiple sub-centres. In New Zealand this shift was amplified by the Christchurch earthquakes - whereby the peripheral suburbs assumed the role of ‘centres’ in a housing pavilion the near-absence of a CBD – however, similar trends have occurred globally for reasons that are economic, political, ecological or otherwise (rendering it a universal issue). While these emerging sub-centres are critical to the future of our urban areas, their physical fabric is often in conflict with the socio-cultural, economic or political roles they are increasing playing. This potentially inhibits the vitality, potency and ultimately, traction, which is essential to their ‘centreness’. Further, while frequently the subject of planning and policy studies, the emergence of smaller, alternative centres has less often been approached as a platform for architectural design-research. This thesis argues that the sub-centre problem is as architectural as it is urban, given that these centres typically emerge within (or as part of) a pre-existing fabric/ infrastructure. The design- research questions architecture’s role in the emergence and development of these sub-centres. Specifically,

PARK

Access to workspaces

it asks how architecture can deliver the density, intensity, vitality and potency which we anticipate at a centre, yet explore, architecturally, the difference between ‘emergent’ and more traditional notions of centre – in terms of public/private relations, tectonic and spatial composition and relationship to the socio-cultural and physical context. an innovation preThese questions are tested through extensive and multimodal designcinct research methodologies (from typological investigation to theoretical analyses). The design output - a dense, live-work-public ‘agora’ based around an existing village green in Sumner, Christchurch - presents one example of how investigative and exploratory approaches may facilitate the emergence of a sub-centre condition that is both contextual and progressive. This site-specific design and method, along with the supporting written paper which situates it within current disciplinary thinking, posits the sub-centre phenomenon as one desperately architectural. It necessitates a re-evaluation of specific aspects of the discipline, in order to produce solutions that operate both as a medium of, and a critical response to, an emerging polycentric urban condition.

STREET

Supervisor: Sam Kebbell

Jake Tindall MArch (Prof)

Roger That

Looking to Roger Walker, Pedestrian Experience & the Future of the City.

New Zealand Institute of Architects – Graphisoft Student Design Awards Finalist

In the heart of Wellington’s city lies The Oaks. This early eighties shopping mall has suffered from incremental alterations affecting the use, function and connectedness of the site as a pedestrian space. The building is dead, architecturally, and yet programmes that contribute to the life of the city continue to survive within. In a commercial sense, these anchors foster the cultural image of this precinct as a point on which pedestrians converge. This project is to re-design The Oaks, concentrating on the architecture of pedestrian experience through the re-evaluation of Arcade typology and the work of Roger Walker. Centred on the lessons of the Wellington Club, the whole of Walker’s work during the seventies is treated as a source book for new design activity. Through typological analysis, the various modes of Walker’s kit-of-parts are unpacked and reassembled in order to utilise the formal and spatial components of this architecture. Emphasis is placed on the exploration of ideas through rigorous physical testing. Following Walter Benjamin’s

flâneur infiltrates the representation and imagining of architectural encounters that lead the dispersal of pedestrians in the city. The design proposition returns to the Arcade as an architectural model for the reorganisation of public space. Centred on the pedestrian, the arcade serves both commerce and the city. Essentially a pedestrian thoroughfare, the transitional nature of the arcade owes not only to the movement of people, but also to the architecture of the exterior that is drawn into the enclosed space. Revisiting the architecture of Roger Walker and the Arcade for the architecture of pedestrian experience brings forth a progressive, pedestrian infrastructure, working in a local idiom.

Supervisor: Peter Wood

Philip Belesky MLA

The Problem of Immanence

“You’re fucking up the world” was the charge put to Peter Eisenman

by Christopher Alexander. The attack was levelled at an architectural solipsism: a design process comprised of purely formal operations.

In the contemporary shift from parallel rulers to parallel processors, explorations of the interiority of architectural software have replaced explorations of the interiority of architectural drafting. The complexity du jour has shifted from line to curve, but the autonomous pursuit of formal novelty remains prime. This is not what was promised. The cybernetic origins of computational architecture and the adoption of Deleuzian thought demand an exploration of virtual processes, not fixed forms; yet the exploration of dynamic systems remains a fringe pursuit. As a result, we fail to make the turbulent realities of material, natural, and social systems active within the computational design process. Within landscape architecture we see a discipline engaged with these realities, but limited by the complexities incurred when exploring dynamic systems quantitatively. This thesis seeks to focus

the tools of computational design upon the design problems of landscape architecture. In doing so, it proposes to introduce non-formal concerns to computational design while also providing a means for landscape architects to better deal with complexity. This is achieved by adopting design patterns as a design research methodology for catalysing engagement with environmental systems. Instead of the formal typologies of Alexander, it looks to computer science’s adoption of design patterns as abstract logics that offer flexible solutions to recurring problems. When leveraged within the design process, such patterns become public of computer code that provide reusable frameworks for analysing, simulating, representing, and designing with open and dynamic systems. By enabling a projective unfolding of formal and functional processes over time, the immanence of environmental systems can become instrumental within the design process.

Supervisor: Jules Moloney

Joshua Blandford MArch (Prof)

Possibilities for a Post-Colonial New Zealand Architecture

This research views architecture as a social practice first, and a physical practice second. It aims to investigate the mediation of colonial narratives of space, culture, and society as an architectural discourse, and investigate possibilities for creating a post-colonial New Zealand architecture through revealing and critiquing these colonial narratives and the mechanisms which support them. The research investigates how the mechanisms of architectural representation and production relate to colonisation and the capitalist and imperilaist ideologies that drive its spatial appropriation through an investigation into the twentieth century New Zealand state house as a social and cultural object. It then challenges the colonial position of the state house through design research analysing the architectural pedagogy of the Wharenui, the spatial concepts of Tapu and Noa as defined by Michel Shirres, and the appropriation of Henri Lefebvre’s lived space in the State Housing suburbs of Eastern Porirua in order to create new postcolonial positions from which architecture can emerge. The work does

not intend to provide a fully resolved conception of a post-colonial New Zealand architecture, nor fully state what should be considered post-colonial architecture within past, present, or future practice.

Rather it seeks to do two things. Firstly it aims to understand where the mechanisms of architectural representation and production came from, how they are related to our history and development as a nation, and provide a case study that explores these relationships through an existing architecture in order to understand their real operation within, and implications upon, society. Secondly, it aims to develop theoretical critiques of colonial architectural production and representation through the medium of design, and extend the possibilities of what a post-colonial New Zealand architecture might be.

Supervisor:ChristineMcCarthy

Oliver Booth

MArch (Prof)

End of the Road

Exploring how architecture can facilitate a genuinely public and inclusive guardianship of New Zealand’s conservation estate

Our natural landscapes are enormously precious to our national identity, our environment, and our economy. In order to protect those landscapes, successive governments have designated approximately one-third of the New Zealand landscape to public conservation estate and restricted the activities that can take place on that land. Existing privately owned buildings on this land are being incrementally handed over to the government or being removed. More and more, New Zealanders are becoming visitors to this land, and less and less guardians of it. This project investigates how architecture can facilitate a genuinely public and inclusive guardianship of our public conservation estate. This is important because 1.65 million people visit our conservation areas each year and our environment is a driving ethos by which we promote our country. The Department of Conservation ‘manages $400 million worth of back country huts, walking tracks, bridges and other visitor infrastructure’. However the way in which we manage our public conservation estate has resulted in these landscapes

becoming a preserve in which people can only observe a selection of these untouched postcard views. To address these ideas the buildings will operate interdependently to help stimulate how areas within conservation land can undergo regeneration, while also supporting human occupation to help rekindle people’s relationships to our natural landscapes. Each hut has a footprint of two square meters that expands to over 10m2 when occupied. The only points of contact to the ground are via three 120mm diameter steel columns. When closed the huts act as sculptural objects in the landscape and are seen differently from each angle. The project is initially sited on the edges of Lake Kohangapiripiri on Wellington’s south coast. This community of 8-16 huts will operate until the landscape has established sufficient regeneration to a point where it can continue on without the infrastructure. At this time the huts will be removed by helicopter after a period of around 15-20 years and transported elsewhere to be re-established in another area of New Zealand’s conservation estate.

Supervisor: Sam Kebbell

Nicola Bowman MArch (Prof)

Accommodating Flux

Site responsive design strategies for a Visitor Centre at Milford Sound

Milford Sound is extremely vulnerable to visitor flux. High volumes of tourists arrive and leave at the same time causing immense pressure on the facilities at Milford Sound Village. This occurs between 10am and 4pm daily. From 10pm- 7am the site is empty. Although the small township is built around the conveyance of visitors, the existing visitor facilities and infrastructure are inactive to this process. The problem is the way that architecture attempts to ‘fix’ change opposed to anticipating it. This thesis concentrates on the design of hybrid structures as a productive way forward to designing architecture that is dynamic, systematic, and more responsive to flux. In response to visitor congestion on site, I have designed network of visitor facilities that aim to reorganize the flow of visitors on the site- between the bus and boat terminal. The network acts an instrument in the landscape. Composed of five concrete pavilions connected by pathways, the network aims to collect and disperse visitors along the site. The architecture of the concrete pavilions is designed to be delicate. Constructed of buried,

floating, carving and balancing elements, the concrete pavilions challenge how architecture can touch the ground lightly. Within such an outstanding natural environment, this thesis also considers how architecture can add to the experience of being immersed in the natural environment. This thesis employs a research through design methodology. The process was initiated through an intuitive design process. Critical analysis of the design identified ten key themes of flux, of which were then investigated through a literature review.

Investigation into relevant literature and case studies extended views on key themes and also offered new ways to design more responsively.

Twenty approaches were extracted from the literature and were used as a mechanism to interrogate and improve the design of my project. This research aims help further identify and advance the possibilities of flux within architectural ‘static’ forms.

Supervisor: Penny Allan

Jaden Cairncross MArch (Prof)

Points of Pause

Architectural articulations of social place identity throughout the narrative sequence of Waikato River hydro-dams

Hydro-dams constructed along the Waikato River have established ‘points of pause’ in the waters’ flow, along an otherwise rapid-flowing sequence. These pauses act as physical manifestations of the river’s social hydro-scheme history but this is presently difficult to observe which prevents the formation of cohesive social place identity along the sequence of dams and their perception as significant social structures.

This problem is exacerbated by the lack of visual access to several of them which has created ‘gaps’ that prevent their ability to be read as a narrative sequence. This thesis argues that social place identity at each of the dams is greatly enhanced when the narrative of a dam’s social history and its progressive shifts in identity are recognised and understood. Through this recognition, each dam can be read as an important social element along the historically significant sequence which is further enhanced when the dams, which blur the boundary between architecture and machine, are understood collectively as a sequential narrative. Opportunities exist to create architectural points

of pause along the Waikato River which would enable the historic significance of each site along the dam sequence to be fully understood through narrative expression. Programmatically, such architectural interventions, when understood as a sequential experience, can act as a type of ‘social history museum’ for the river with history of the dams as their narrative display. A ‘museum’ intervention at each dam acts as a point of pause that promotes the social significance of the dam by enhancing the reading of its social place identity, which combines the narrative display with the resolution of identity-related site specific conditions. These pauses are best understood as part of the collective group where each dam’s social history narrative can be understood as sequential chapters in the larger Waikato River hydro-scheme tale.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Liang Chen

MIA

Bike Shop

The intention of the research is to develop a prefabricated system which is responsive to a wide range of site conditions. The Greater Wellington Regional Council has put forward their second highest funding for cycling in the region. A large amount is for funding the development of the cycle way between Ngaraunga to Petone. With these developments there will be the need to develop bike resting stops to provide for cyclists. This thesis will undergo experiments to address the range of conditions that the prefabricated systems would sit on. The prefabricated system will also be used to address issues of council aided cost and transportation. The design case study proposes a ‘Bike Shop’, a bike pavilion which provides for the cyclists.As a vehicle for design the site used is the Great Harbour Way/ Te Aranui o PĹ?neke.

The Great Harbour Way stretches along the shoreline in the Greater Wellington region. The thesis proposes that each architectural element of the matrix will function at a human-scale as a place to rest, where simultaneously a bike can be repaired or a tire can be inflated or a

bicyclist can rest and rehydrate with other cyclists. Each element of the matrix will take on a different form based on its position along the Great Harbour Way which stem of one designed prefabricated system. In this way, each tells a story about its identity in the greater city, thereby allowing users to understand the identity of the region overall. In this way, the thesis argues that the elements will be recognized as signifiers of the city as well as markers of location and orientation. Overall this thesis invites prefabricated elements to be changeable in a way that makes them site responsive and beautiful rather than just repetitive.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Sacha Constable MArch (Prof)

Red Zone as Green Corridor

Opportunities for Intensification - A Christchurch Case Study

It is well established that urban green areas provide a wide range of social, aesthetic, environmental and economic benefits.The importance of urban green spaces has been known for decades; however the relationship between urban liveability and green areas as incorporated in overall urban green structure has become the focus of international studies especially during the last 10 to 15 years. The spatial structure of urban green space systems has important consequences for urban form; configuring urban resources, controlling urban size, improving ecological quality of urban areas and preventing or mitigating natural disasters. However, in the field of architecture or urban design, very little work has been done to investigate the potential for built form to define and differentiate the edge to a green corridor. The research retrofits the green-corridor planning concept to East Christchurch using ‘red-zoned’ suburban land to create a new open space corridor between the city center and the coast. The Christchurch case study is unusual for two reasons. Firstly, the seismic events of 2011 have caused a discontinuity

in the urban fabric creating 500 hectares of unbuildable riverside land. Secondly, green-corridors are typically created before suburban development occurs rather than being overlaid on existing settlement patterns.At an architectural scale, the research investigates possibilities for creating a differentiated, intensified yet integrated built edge along the corridor. In doing so the thesis draws together two aspects of urban design: first, the relationship between ‘green-corridor’ and city; and second, the connection between intensified diversified settlement patterns and more ecological city forms. This thesis therefore poses the hypothesis that architecture and urban design critically mediate between city and green corridor, through intensification and definition of the built edge, as a means of contributing to an ecological city form.

Supervisor: Chris McDonald

William Conway MArch (Prof)

Paradigmatic Rejuvenation

Neil Challenger, Head of the School of LandscapeArchitecture at Lincoln University, stated in 2010 that the malls surrounding Christchurch are what drove the life out of the Central Business District (CBD) even before the earthquake occurred; this forms the current hesitation on the rebuilding of Christchurch’s CBD. The position of this research proposal is to challenge whether an urban architectural intervention can address the economical and sociological concerns that Challenger has posed regarding the potentially devastating effects the suburban mall has had on urban life within Christchurch. The thesis specifically asks whether establishing a mall typology as a landmark building within

the CBD, can remedy the problem of the ‘hollow’ city that existed before the earthquake and create a more positive and distinctive image and identity that will actively encourage people to re-engage economically, culturally and socially with the CBD.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Angus Earl MArch (Prof)

Title:

Sub-title.

Contemporary architectural discourse in the 21st century is often, alarmingly, reduced to the narrow contemporary vision that the discipline can be primarily treated as a technical instrument or aestheticized commodity; an outcome that is symptomatic of attitudes that have emerged from a new wave of architects and architectural theorists defined by many as ‘postcritical’. The product of this technocratic view is often buildings that are divorced from the specific cultural, social, and ethical implications of their context. This thesis argues that this anti-critical outlook was fundamental to the creation of ‘negative’ urban sites that now exist as physical manifestations of the Modernist paradigm; and that, in spite of recent trends, the vitality of critical theory is of compounding importance to the construction of new social space within them. In order to reconcile this contemporary positioning with architectural practice, the design case study is sited within, and around one such space - the Clifton Street Car Park.

This case study engages architectural design as a means to test the

production of ‘Critical Spatial Practices’, a framework pioneered by art and architectural theorist Jane Rendell. This will be unified with the additional method of non-linear narrative analysis; a reflection on the site, and subsequently the design intervention, from the perspective of five fictional characters which will instigate a social dialogue with the architectural possibilities of Rendell’s methodology. This experimental combination attempts to negotiate the translation of critical theory into design practice, invigorating debate on the work of architecture’s critical necessity, and employing social experiences with formal design methodologies as a means to rehabilitate the site through architectural design. Critical, social spaces provide an opportunity for a didactic exchange between the built fabric of our cities and the agents that occupy them. This opens up a space for critique about the production of buildings within the public realm and the possibility for architecture to contribute a meaningful role to the relationship between the city and its inhabitants.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Libby Elmore MArch (Prof)

Living the contemporary Kiwi dream

There is a huge demand for new housing in New Zealand and a push to stop urban sprawl through densification of existing areas. Thus the modernist dream of dense and efficient community living has become a necessity, but it is not attractive to most New Zealanders. By and large, the kiwi dream is based on nuclear families funded by small businesses in individual houses with private lawns. The medium density we are designing does not address this abundance and individuality. By developing a housing model where the modernist dream of efficient community living is collided with the kiwi dream of abundance, individuality and small business cultivation, improvements in the design of medium density housing could be made. Local precedents will be assessed to prove our current failures. International precedents will be assessed for their appropriateness for New Zealanders in order to discover architectural mechanisms for achieving abundance and individuality. A theoretical argument will be generated through a literature review of current and discourse around the issue. The design

component will ultimately comprise a series of design iterations that attempt to resolve issues set out in the written component using strong formal solutions. The design will be sited in Sumner, Christchurch.

It will consist of a strong infrastructure with the base of a housing super-structure that can be added to over time through participation.

The design component will dissect and then re-frame what the Kiwi housingdream is, assessedfor success againstthecriteriaofabundance and individuality. Key aspects in the design brief will be the efficient use of space; geometries that can be quickly and economically assembled; elegant composition; opportunities for work-live environments; opportunities for individuality and informal development; a sustainable infrastructure and an atmosphere of abundant space.

Supervisor: Sam Kebbell

James Fischer MLA

Anticipating the Big One

Due to recent seismic activity across New Zealand, it has become widely speculated that Wellington is overdue for a major earthquake that could devastate the city. This thesis explores how the retrofitting of access ways and open space can combine quality urban design with latent emergency functions. This will ultimately result in the creation of beautiful everyday spaces that can transition in the event of a major emergency, such as an earthquake, to ensure the safety of the public during and after the event.This design led research tests the combination of latent emergency functions with quality urban design through a series of landscape architecture experiments that focus on Wellington’s CBD as a site for design exploration. Located between the motorway and the harbour, running the length of Lambton Quay, a large portion of Wellington’s CBD lies on relatively flat, low lying, reclaimed land that is vulnerable to liquefaction, ground shaking, tsunami inundation and

seiches. This means that in the event of a significant earthquake, deficiencies in access ways, open space and accessible high ground are very real threats that could increase the risk of human casualties. This research is intended to generate new ideas and creative solutions to the idea of urban resilience, indicating that spaces designed for an emergency function can still enlighten our everyday experience of the city.

Supervisor: Penny Allan

Terèse Fitzgerald MArch (Prof)

A Boutique Pataka:

Re-vealing curiosities of character with expressive architecture in Ngawi

Ngawi is a remote fishing village populated as generously by tractors as it is by people. Caught at the southern-most point of New Zealand’s North Island, it has an endangered, eccentric nautical flavour. The aim of this design-research is to dramatically express this flavour through architecture in order to manifest character before it is lost to ubiquitous holiday homes. This thesis argues for a rigorous place analysis incorporating drawing and composition studies to investigate mechanical artefacts and intangible concepts which are revealed as inherent ‘architectures’ defining Ngawi’s character and possessing potential for expression. This thesis proposes a highly visual designresearch methodology, comprising a trio of drawing and composition studies, each resulting in a model of which principles and forms are extracted and influence a final model which tests the aims of the research. A light insertion of programme commentates the sequence of spaces within a final expressive architecture, derived out of Ngawi.

This architecture provides meticulous consideration to detail influenced

by imperatives borrowed from Gaston Bachelard, Alexander Brodsky and the New Zealand bach. These prospects offer the opportunity for an experimental, radical reappraisal of the small-town New Zealand fish and chip shop – a vertically phenomenological boutique Pātaka serving live crayfish, kumara, sashimi and chips.As we enter the second decade of a non-millennium, this thesis provides New Zealand with a progressive strategy for an architecture of expression. Within this, a new direction for the horizontality of the New Zealand bach is offered through vertical spatial solutions of a fish and chip shop dwelling.

The strategies suggested by this thesis are applicable to other coastal communities, which create within them totems, expressive of character, carrying their identity into the unforeseen.

Supervisor: Peter Wood

Samuel Gould MLA

A Response to Urban Intensification

Leveraging Industrial Infrastructures to Facilitate the Human Scale

Traditionally, stadiums have been understood to speak of temporality, and maintain little connection to the built environment. Yet increasingly we are seeing the stadia’s internal events generate an array of subsidiary benefits of which the host environment generally witnesses at a macro scale. The legacy of these events, are typically manifold with many intangible benefits affecting the host environment. Yet the stadium structure itself, akin to many large grain structures, is generally deficient in these same qualities. The stadium has long presented itself as a mono-functional structure, providing its surrounding environment with little in the way of external vitality. Many cities have employed spectator facilities in attempts to initiate urban regeneration however there is typically too greater reliance on the events taking place inside the stadium, and not on the structures peripheral relationships. Charles Waldheim suggests our current model of urbanism is fundamentally flawed, in that it is dependent upon the aggregation of buildings for its spatial framework. This thesis will explore the extent of contemporary

urbanism’s reliance on built form for spatial framework, through addressing the stadia’s key issues orbiting around porosity, edge symbiosis and urban integration. There exists significant opportunity for the stadia to facilitate interaction and vitality outside of event dates. Urban revitalization through stadium design exists as a forum, through which an extensive range of urban morphological issues can be addressed. Wellington’s Westpac Stadium inhabits a unique environment. A key focal point of the CBD and greater Wellington harbour, this structure appropriates itself as a vehicle for design led research through both its dynamic and complex connections with major infrastructures, transit networks and varying urban grain fabrics.

However the stadium’s peripheral exists short sighted. Ultimately this design process will look to conclude that through the critical application of a string of integrative designs, the stadia may be successful in addressing the human scale and condition, just as effectively from an external urban environment, as from within its core.

Supervisor: Penny Allan

Nigel Groom MArch (Prof)

Architectural Vinification

Designing winery architecture for contemporary winemaking process

New Zealand is renowned for the production of high quality agricultural products from its rural landscape. This is exemplified by viticulture and winemaking, where the unique conditions of environmental location, when paired with winemaking processes can produce internationally recognised high quality wine. This success has given rise to growing numbers of wineries populating some of New Zealand’s most scenic landscapes. Many of these wineries are architecturally designed but focus on the building as a means of brand representation and marketing. Whilst this plays a contributing factor for the design of the contemporary winery, these industrial buildings must first be designed to house and perform winemaking functions. It is through architecture that contemporary winemaking process flows may occur, where the facility for necessary equipment provided, where environmental conditions are mediated, and where the interaction of the winemaker takes place. As such architecture can be considered a potential winemaking technology requiring research through design.

Accordingly this research through design project is engaged as a vehicle to explore the performative relationship between site and program of winery architecture. The project investigates and illustrates how the design of functional winery architecture might respond to and express both its location and the winemaking process. The resulting design, a series of terraced volumes, utilises the natural terrain as a means of supporting natural ‘gravity flow’ of the wine through the stages of production.

Supervisor:Tobias Danielmeier

Jonathan Hay MArch (Prof)

Architectural Indicators

An exploration into contemporary industry roles

Due to progressive technological and industry developments, the act of conceiving a building is no longer solely in the architect’s hands; rather it has created defined divisions of labour, contributing to a compartmentalised industry where the boundaries between discipline responsibilities and authorship are considerably blurred, and none more so for the architect. As a result, there are strained and dysfunctional cross-disciplinary relations that are in tension with the emerging alternatives to the production of architecture. This also suggests that design is no longer the principle driver in the conception of a building.

These changes have significantly contributed and shifted the balance of how the industry and the production of architecture operate at the demise of the architect. The architect has the ability to lead the industry and adopt change through the collaboration of diverse skill sets across the design-build continuum, while shifting their role toward that of an architect-constructor specialist.The design of theTrade Building facility is aimed at allowing the architecture integrated with the manufacturing

processes within, to act as a method of teaching the modern collaborative cohort through the testing of alternative approaches to the production of architecture. The fundamental operative of the facility is to portray and enable qualities of craft to occur through lowtech and hi-tech dichotomies where collaborative authorship of shared intentions and qualities of craft are manifested and articulated through an overall process-based approach to architecture. One key difference to normal collaborative approaches, is the dynamic integration with materials that invites the log and timber to become a part of the diverse and collaborative team. This is further evidenced throughout the Trade Building facility with the use of dual scales between human tactile scales, and the larger industrial scale production. As a result of these dual scales and the processes within there are multiple directionalities experienced between craft and production. Thus allowing the architecture to transform and adapt as technological development further challenges the demand of the space.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Michael Holmes MArch (Prof)

The 0.0047 Acre Dream

Smart Growth, Compact Cities, Urban Intensification and Transitoriented Development are all among urban design concepts, which principles have influenced city-planning policies in developed western countries. The adoption of principles such as walkable cities, public transport and sustainable urban settlement all share a requirement for the intensification of residential densities and vice versa. In countries such as New Zealand however, with a heritage of low-density suburban development, a preference for suburbia is evidenced in figures of over 75% of all residential units being of the low density, detached variety.

While this is taken as a fair indicator for suburban preference, it is also acknowledged that there is a growing demand for higher density development, in response to changing lifestyle, employment patterns and city demographics. As such, this research positions itself within the argument for residential intensification by suggesting micro-infill as a typology that is able to reconcile many of the established cultural perceptions of home, with the benefits of urban intensification.

Supervisor:Tobias Danielmeier

Cameron Hurrell

MArch (Prof)

Stalker

Archive of Decay

Abandoned coal mining sites leave huge scars on the landscapes they inhabit; once the mine is depleted the site is forgotten, left to its own destruction through a presumption of decay. Off the west coast of Japan lie the ruins of Gunkanjima (“Battleship Island”) or as it is commonly called Hashima. The original island reef once lay rich with coal and was heavily mined, resulting in total devastation of the original atoll. Mitsubishi who purchased the island in 1890 and then went on to develop undersea coal mines on the island. During this period, up to 5500 people inhabited the infrastructure constructed during Japan’s industrialisation, making Hashima one of the most densely populated cities in the world at that time. The mine was shut down during the 1970’s when Japan turned to petroleum for its primary source of fuel.

The ruins of the forgotten city remain, its history forgotten; tours to the island had been forbidden until 2009 when a small walkway was constructed, the walkway only enables tours along the periphery of the western edge. This thesis also explores Guerrilla Architecture as a

viable new approach to witnessing a sites historical evolution. Guerrilla Architecture will become another piece of the sites on going history; this approach differs from traditional approaches to architecture (such as placing a hotel and tourist office on the site), the guerrilla approach integrates the new architecture into the existing decaying architecture evidencing itself through the use of new materials. The guerrilla will then not only be invited to enter into the process of decay itself, but become a participant in the existence of the islands decaying ruins as well. Hashima’s original program as a mining town is no longer viable; the addition of Guerrilla architecture elements to the island will act as witnessing stations enabling an entirely new contemporary program to thrive upon the island (tourism) without destroying it through traditional architectural approach telling us to re-build. This is particularly relevant with this site because it has been proposed that Gunkanjima Island be designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Lief Keown

MArch (Prof)

New Zealand Surf Life Saving Clubs

Design strategies responsive to vernacular building tradition in a sensitive coastal location

New Zealand’s coastal landscape is a desirable position that holds great significance to our countries culture. Surf Life Saving Clubs are prominent architectural figures that sit proudly upon New Zealand beaches nationwide. Surf Life Saving Clubs have a rich history and are representative of the Kiwi lifestyle. Yet, Surf Life Saving Clubs as architecture have received little serious attention. This thesis investigates characteristic features of Surf Life Saving Clubs in their coastal setting and shows how those qualities can be recognised in future club development. A review of existing research indicates a gap in scholarship regarding the building group as a facet to coastal development. In this research an extensive range of Surf Life Saving Clubs have been surveyed to gain a greater understanding of the

building group; siting, form, program, brief. This is then followed by detailed case studies of active Surf Life Saving Clubs. The research deduces patterns in site, placement, orientation, layout, form and materiality that affect the buildings’character. Surf Life Saving protocols which follow functional/operational requirements are also addressed.

Drawing from this design as research, possible design guides are then developed and tested. Based on these investigations the thesis concludes with a design case study that’s produced to model a contemporary Surf Life Saving Club (SLSC) vernacular.

Supervisor: Chris McDonald

Edward Kilkenny-Brown MArch (Prof)

Re: Christchurch Cathedral

On the 26th of March 2012 it was announced that the Anglican Christchurch Cathedral was to be demolished due to severe earthquake damage. The Christchurch Cathedral has stood at the centre of Christchurch City for over 150 years and was held to be the ‘heart’ and ‘icon’ of the City. The Cathedral was constructed soon after Christchurch’s settlement with its architecture and urban presence reflecting imported, utopian ideals from the British Empire that was intended to be the central influence to the developing colony. The demolition of Christchurch Cathedral provides a rare opportunity for Christchurch and New Zealand to create a new, significant, exemplary architecture for a city under major reconstruction. This research investigates this exciting opportunity and proposes a new cathedral design that is sensitive to the past but also looks towards the future speaking of destruction, challenge, identity and reconstruction. The new design does this specifically by testing influence and identity through the original cathedral fabric and associated gothic principles.

These influences are re-read, re-interpreted through manual processes such as drawing and modelling.These manual processes allow a critical dialogue between influence and design which is constantly challenged and refined to create a grounded yet original architectural response for the new cathedral. The Christchurch Cathedral has fallen along with the city around it; over 50% of the buildings in Christchurch CBD have been or will be demolished. The new cathedral will, like its predecessor, set a standard of architecture to aspire to during times of change and reconstruction. This project proposes a new, dynamic architecture for Christchurch that provides urban focus, local identity and clarity in a time of radical change and reconstruction.

Supervisor: Peter Wood

Jun Min Kim MArch (Prof

Dong whan ga (kinetic home)

The process of personalisation of a house currently exists within stable spaces defined by fixed walls and is usually confined to choice of objects in the space such as furniture, paintings or photos, colour of the walls and type of plants. It is very seldom that a house itself can physically become part of personalisation unless through timely and costly process of design and construction. This is because a house once it’s built becomes a rigid and stable entity. The prime objective of the research is to challenge the notion of a house as a fixed and stable entity and allow the house to physically and easily be part of the personalisation both aesthetically and spatially (functionally) through utilisation of kineticism in order to improve the ability for it to become home. Since the needs and desires from the occupants of their home are very broad, it will be confined to a house for a family wanting to reflect the ideas found in traditional Korean houses. This is so that the application of kinetics for personalisation can be studied in depth in a specific situation. The research will initially involve study of theories on

the relationship between house and home with in-depth study of the role of personalisation in creating ‘home’. Subsequently, the traditional Korean houses will be studied followed by case studies of utilisation of kineticism both aesthetically and spatially (functionally), which will be reinterpreted to suit the purpose of the research. The case studies will not be limited to architectural works and the boundary extends to any objects with kinetic movements including sculptures. On the basis of investigation, a house is designed that is personalised through kineticism.

Supervisor: Jules Moloney

Paul McCardle MArch (Prof)

Mobility Oriented Design

How can the principles of Mobility Oriented Design (MOD) inform the (re)design of New Zealand suburban transit stations and their surrounding areas? Mobility Oriented Design (MOD) is a term coined by Danish urban designer Jan Gehl. MOD seeks to further Peter Calthopes idea of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) through the addition of the ideasandconceptsofPeopleScaleDesign(PSD).Thisresearchseeksto illuminate this idea as well as adding a third component transit station design, to produce a new set principles and strategies appropriate for the design of suburban transit stations.Initial research focuses on case studies and literature, based on TOD, PSD and TSD, which led to a broad understanding of how to combine these and form a basis for developing the MOD principles. MOD principles and strategies will be tested and further developed through their application to the setting of the Paraparaumu railway station and its surrounding areas. The site will be re-designed to improve public transport facilities, increase pedestrian mobility, and contribute to the creation of a vibrant town

centre where people can live, shop and work.An iterative design process thoroughly tests and analyses the proposed new concept of MOD. By analysing, testing and applying the MOD principles within the design process, strengths and weaknesses were revealed, which meant there was a need to create amendments to the existing MOD principles.Throughout the design, attention was given to the increase of patrons to the site, urban quality, public transport use, and reduce the dominance of private vehicles over the site and surrounding areas.

Supervisor: Chris McDonald

Mitchell McKenzie MArch (Prof)

Roll On – Roll Off

During the final months of 2011 the New Zealand government revisited a 50 year old plan to move the inter-island ferry terminal, currently located in Picton, to a site sandwiched between Lake Grassmere and the Clifford Bay coastline. This thesis will be based around the design of the new terminal facilities. Marc Augé’s theory of “non-place” will serve as the theoretical background to the thesis. Augé describes the contemporary passenger terminal as a so¬ulless and leftover space rendering any user as just another “traveller” in the system. WhileAugé’s observations are astute they express a negative view of the vast range of possibilities associated with passenger terminals. This thesis argues that while Augé makes sense in his argument he fails to see the positive outcomes of these perceived “non-places”.This thesis explores how architecture can be used to illeviate some of the issues raised by Augé in his writing. It will argue that through a series of architectural changes a terminal can be a place of endless possibilities and enjoyment rather than the “soulless and leftover space” he describes it as.Architecturally

the new Lake Grassmere terminal has been designed to express the dynamic nature of travel and critique the notion of the terminal as a “waiting room” while still maintaining required terminal function.

Internal terminal functions such as shops or staff areas have been localised to “stable” structures that sit within larger “unstable” space.

This allows for the creation of a series of way finding points within each building that still expresses the unique Lake Grassmere site.

Supervisor:Tobias Danielmeier

Daniel McNab MArch (Prof)

Closets of the Mind

Mental illness is a social disease which is gaining momentum within our society, characterised by a severe condition of the mind causing disastrous consequences for people who suffer from this disease.Yet as a mental illness wreaks havoc on our society, there is a disturbing trend of this disease affecting young gay men. Statistically, gay men are most at risk in our society of suffering some form of mental illness, due to many unfortunate reasons such as discrimination and loss of identity.

This research will propose a possible solution to this situation. How can the notion of a mental illness within young gay men, be prevented and cured, using architecture as a primary tool of therapy? From here, two strands of research, are looked at Mental Healing throughArchitecture and Queer space, will be combined to create an architectural proposition that will help the inhibitor prevent and cure his mental

illness. The design that will be proposed, through interior architecture, will help the sufferer gain a clear sense of mental, emotional, spiritual and physical strength, through the search of identity within queer culture. By combating his mental illness through architecture, the sufferer will restore his sense of identity and place within our modern day society.

Supervisor: Philippe Campays

Hamish McPhail MArch (Prof)

Architecture & the Intangibles

New Zealand has a high rate of mental disorders affecting 1 in 5 people.

Current guidelines only outline building typologies and do not question the deeper affect of one’s perception of the built environment.This thesis seeks to help understand the affect of architecture on mental illness: specifically the condition of depression. In order to comprehend the relationship between architecture/space and its inhabitant, this thesis will firstly investigate how intangible elements such as color, light; form etc, culminated and diffused can alter the perception and experience of space. Architecture in this context is the ephemeral, intangible relationship between the user and the embodied perception that lies within the built form. Secondly through case studies, text and drawings the thesis will examine the affect of the intangibles on the state of mental illness/depression. The negative aspect of architecture activating depression will be examined. This will assist in understanding how architecture can positively affect occupants of space with depression.Architecture and its relationship between depression will be

examined to conclude whether it is a contributing factor in depression.

Architecture as therapy or as a therapeutic agent is proposed to engage aspects of the intangible. Investigation and comprehension of depression will lead to the selection of site and specific programme. This project through analysis created guidelines for the design of treatment facilities and to also translate ideas and theories into tangible physical identities. A case study design is aimed at creating architecture as therapy, which better understands the relationship of the intangible in architecture. The result being a contemporary mental institution for the treatment of depression in a New Zealand context, creating guidelines for the built form to increase the success of therapy and rehabilitation.

The research concludes that architecture will increase the recovery process and reduce rates of depression within our population.

Supervisor: Philippe Campays

Liam McRoberts MArch (Prof)

The New Villa

The central suburbs of Wellington city are largely built up of Victorian and Edwardian villas. Constructed from native timber, these historic artefacts are a display of workmanship, elegance and Victorian mass production. All of which contribute to the character of these suburbs and all of which, we love. However this old building stock is old, notoriously damp, cold, dark and organized according to Victorian social values that essentially have become irrelevant.Although the villa has little architectural merit, it is a precious link to our colonial history and character of New Zealand that we ought to treasure. Rudimentary evolution of the villa is evident within Wellington city. This growth has been primarily concerned with density and image; transforming the villa into a medium density typology while ignoring the tangible strengths of this historic artefact. The cause of separation between the two is distinct and continues today. Developers are concerned only with profit, where density is the fundamental goal; resulting in poor materiality, construction, attention to detail and lack of outdoor space.

Therefore it is recognized that this historic typology must evolve to address the historic fabric and maintain a level of continuity. This thesis embraces a perspective of craft, ornamentation, assembly techniques and sustainability that is relevant to a contemporary society. This project argues for a strengthening of the historic fabric and rejecting a prevalent trend to treating architecture as disposable.

Supervisor: Sam Kebbell

Ben Mellor MLA

Expressing the Unseen

Representing Maori heritage in Wellington

The representation of Māori heritage in Wellington does not respect a Māori understanding or connection to the landscape. The New Zealand Company purchase of Māori land in 1839 and the subsequent settlement of Wellington saw a radical change in the landscape. Many Māori, especially those at Te Aro Pa, believed their land was unjustly bought by those who did not have a right to it. Parallel to the removal of Māori from their land was the removal of landscape features such as the series of streams that ran from the surrounding hills to the harbour.

The culverting of the waterways meant both a loss of a vital resource for Māori as well as a loss of cultural and spiritual connection to the land.

The current representation of Māori landscape heritage in Wellington acts as a continuation of the colonisation of Wellington. It extends the removal of Māori culture and understanding of the landscape by imposing a European tradition of standing and looking to understand the heritage of the sites. In contrast to this, engaging with a Māori understanding of the landscape can allow landscape architecture

to revive these lost waterways in the urban landscape and cause the city to recognise the significance of the land to Māori. In this thesis, design explores how engaging Māori perceptions of water can inform new infrastructures that: rehabilitate Wellington’s hydrological systems, encourage interaction with water, strengthen the representation of Māori heritage, and provide for a greater sense of custodianship. As the understanding of the relationship between Māori and water grows the design develops to reflect this. This proposition not only challenges the current state of the representation of Māori heritage, but also the understanding that stormwater infrastructure needs to quickly and efficiently remove water from the city.

Supervisor:ChristineMcCarthy

Renee Nankivell MArch (Prof)

Time Passes

The demand for a new approach to safeguarding New Zealand’s endangered historic buildings was identified as a result of the recent increase in building code and strengthening requirements following the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010-2011. The Wellington City Council identified 266 heritage buildings in the city that must be either strengthened or demolished to address these increased requirements.

This thesis explores this threat as an opportunity for researching how contemporary design interventions can be challenged to both strengthen and witness New Zealand’s potentially endangered historic buildings. This thesis challenges the current approach of completely ‘restoring’ 19th-20th century historic buildings in New Zealand, and proposes a structural intervention that is responsive to the progressive history of historic buildings, simultaneously introducing a contemporary structural intervention that both witnesses and compliments the decay of the design vehicle. This thesis argues that current historic buildings in semi-decayed states in

fact enable visitors to witness multiple stages in the life of a building.

The notion of layering is explored as a design approach to incorporate the contemporary with the historic as an additional layer of exposed history, thereby further exposing the layers of history evident within New Zealand’s historic buildings. The theoretical imperatives of Scarpa and Kahn will be explored as a tool of engagement for the junction point between the contemporary and historic building materials, and the work of Mary Miss is explored as a design technique to develop a contemporary intervention that resonates and references the layered histories within the historic building. The selected vehicle for the design research investigation is the Albemarle Hotel on Ghuznee Street in Wellington. Overall the research and design experiments suggest that contemporary interventions derived from structural strengthening may be a viable and cost-effective method of re-inhabiting New Zealand’s endangered heritage buildings, avoiding demolition and securing New Zealand’s heritage for future generations.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Courtenay Northcott

MLA

Reconstructed Memory

Question: How can the abstract idea of memory be represented through the discipline of landscape architecture? How could this be more specifically achieved within the man-made landscape, using materiality and time as tools within the design process?

This thesis essentially addresses the relationship that may exist between landscape architecture and the exploration of selective memory within the landscape. The definition of memory is defined by site and urban context. The exploration of theories relating to collective and individual memories, identity in the man-made landscape, materiality and trace will define and anchor memory within landscape architecture. The connection between site, social frameworks of memory and the urban realm will be tested through a variety of design interventions. The second part of this thesis addresses the idea of memory within the manmade landscape. How infrastructure has impacted upon the identity of the natural landscape, which has in turn affected the collective memory of the site within the larger urban environment. The selected site for this

research is the former Air Force Base at Shelly Bay, Miramar. The land has recently been bought by the local Iwi as part of a Treaty of Waitangi Settlement, who plan to develop the site for the public of Wellington.The design experimentation will investigate how memory can be recreated and represented on the chosen site of Shelly Bay. An investigation into temporary and permanent aspects of design, including materiality and weathering, will allow a more in-depth exploration of memory to take place upon the site. The process of the weathering and durability over time makes the design intent visible, and displays the character and identity of the landscape. The ability to bridge the gap between a fixed idea of memory and the realization of that built idea over time could be achieved by allowing for process and change to occur within the design and the site. These concepts will be tested upon the site of Shelly Bay through three specific design interventions. These interventions will aim to test and represent different memories upon the site, both manmade and natural.

Supervisor: Philippe Campays

James Pattullo

MLA

The Ghost Bride Cemetery

Abandoned coal mines leave enormous scars upon the landscape once the minerals have been removed and the thriving populace has moved onward. These scars upon the landscape encourage further erosion and further destruction. The Chinese government is dedicating US$7 million to attempt to rejuvenate one such site, the abandoned Haizhou Opencast Coal Mine in Fuxin, China. Currently this site represents the largest abandoned man-made mine in China – the largest “hole” in Asia. It is 20m lower than the lowest land point in China. The Chinese government is seeking a means by which a thriving populace can be encouraged to repopulate the damaged site, as China needs to support a predicted migration of 200 million rural persons into Chinas already teeming cities. China expects to spend NZ$9.7 trillion over the coming 20 years to fund housing, social welfare and infrastructure projects related to this migration. This thesis argues that the reclamation of the Haizhou Coal Mine rests in the ability to integrate agrarian and urban programs in ways that are responsive to the natural conditions of a

site, approaches that argue against the traditional applied orthogonal urban grid, in favour of site-specific frameworks that fundamentally acknowledge natural landscape systems. The development of viable mix-used ‘minescapes’presents opportunities to redeem these globally occurring sites with new opportunities for economic and urban development. This thesis critically engages contemporary theories of Responsive Cities, Disenchanted Utopias, and Systems Thinking with respect to transforming the toxicity of abandoned mines as a global problem into viable new infrastructures.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Ariana Pia MIA

Te Pikinga o tooku Tuakiri The Ascent of Self-Identity

This research questions whether considering Maori concepts of architecture and space within the design of New Zealand prisons can help in the rehabilitation process of inmates of Maori descent.

This project proceeded through four steps. First, the general concept of prison architecture was researched. The panopticon as a general diagram as well as specific case studies will frame an understanding of the characteristics of prison architecture in the western sphere. A specific attention to interior architecture will be established. Second, the link between cultural experience and rehabilitation is distinguished primarily through analysis of Maori Focus Units. Third, the notions of Maori perception and understanding of architectural space is explored in a general context. More particularly, characteristics of interior architecture were researched. Fourth, a site was selected to reflect the contentious issues of incarceration of the Maori population. Somes Island is a reflection of historical Maori culture and lifestyles that form a base of beliefs and mythology that modern Maori can identify with.

The island itself is a provocation due to its history of incarceration. This thesis is of interior architecture; hence the design will be developed within the constraints of a given architectural envelope. While this is an assumed position, the interior architecture will challenge the given envelope and its contextual site. As a consequence, further interventions into the landscape and the architecture will be developed to sustain the interior architecture here developed. This thesis argues that the idea that interior architecture of New Zealand prisons must be developed as an integral part of a holistic spatial intervention in view of supporting the rehabilitation process of Maori inmates.

Supervisor: Philippe Campays

Clayton Prest

MArch (Prof)

Intermission

Performative Architecture in the Transitional City

Two years of earthquakes have left Christchurch divided, conflicted and uncertain. The demolition cited for over eighty percent of all central city buildings has led to a radical re-questioning of identity in the city.

Christchurch faces a much larger man-made disaster and a need to reconcile the relationship between people and their city. This thesis explores an alternative to bureaucratic urban planning present in the opportunity of the transitional city. New architecture during this period must support social participation and activate the city as a site for artistic experimentation.This thesis explores the interactive relationship between theatrical performance, architecture and public space to support the emerging identity in post-disaster Christchurch.The designresearch reworks the theatre as a primary site for social interaction and the temporary activation of urban space. Utilising theatre as a means of engaging public participation, it establishes a series of performance spaces on the conflicted historical edge of the central city red-zone.

The Free Theatre and proposedArts Circus site form the programmatic

case studies for a succession of architectural interventions that shift the definitions between audience and performers and bring into focus a new relationship with historical built form, the ground, and the red zone barrier. Design methodology integrates a theatrical understanding of movement and visuality to challenge spatial conventions and support creative interaction. Conclusions acknowledge theatre architecture not just as a container of performance, but itself a performing architecture within the derelict urban context. It seeks to show that architecture can be active and dynamic, serving both a transitional role and mediating public interaction. Through performative space it aims to assist a transition from ephemeral to permanent architecture in the new city.

The design-research seeks to validate the importance of the arts in activating urban space and constructing a renewed sense of place.

Supervisor: Philippe Campays

Matthew Reid

MIA

Drawn to the Rhythm

Sport inspires the human body to move. It presents the opportunity for communities to gather, to witness, and to celebrate sporting performances. It is about creating and selling an experience, an experience that unites both the athletes and spectators as one. Unlike sports such as Basketball, Cricket, and Rugby that have purpose-built architecture to enable the witnessing and celebration of these sports, rowing unfortunately does not. For a sport that is highly successful here in New Zealand, creating the opportunities for athletes and the sport of rowing to be witnessed and celebrated will result in spectators having a greater appreciation for the sport. Rowing has a unique difference from most sports in that their transition is between land and water. This thesis argues that our relationship to the built environment has become increasingly isolated from the experience of the landscape upon which it is sited. This thesis questions how critical boundaries separating architecture and landscape can be re-examined in order to re-enforce our experience of the built environment and site to offer new ways to

re-connect our experience of inside and outside. The proposed site for this research is Clyde Quay Wharf in Wellington. The unique nature of this finger wharf site further challengers this research and adds a new dimension to the exploration of this critical transition between inside and outside. The proposed programme of a rowing centre for this thesis aims to ensure that this site avoids becoming privatised and is easily accessible to the public.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Jeremy Robinson

MArch (Prof)

Plyscrapers

Rematerializing Christchurch

14. _stories 10.

6. _1st iterations

_2nd iterations

_3rd iterations

bank?

_reconfig. [10.]

private semi-public x2

structure

After the devastating earthquakes of 22nd of February 2011, Christchurch has been in a state of architectural flux. With a significant loss of building stock to its Central Business District, practitioners have been given the task to rethink, renew and revitalize Christchurch architecturally. With a newfound industry wide impetus toward constructing with engineered timber products, Christchurch provides the perfect context for innovation in this form of construction. In this context, this research investigates innovation in timber construction to provide an insight into a material that could rebuild the city. Alternative high-rise construction methods were studied in contrast as a way

to scrutinize the performance of engineered timber structures. This research seeks to test the feasibility of engineered timber construction as a way to challenge preconceptions associated with high-rise buildings. Furthermore, structure was investigated concurrently as a design driver in the belief it will induce innovation. Pertinent to this is the exploration of an ‘exoskeletal structure’ an inventive mass-timber structural system.

Supervisor:Tobias Danielmeier

Peggy Russell MArch (Prof)

Resonant Housing

Reconfiguring the Rural

The people of Moerewa, like many throughout our country, have a deep primordial connection to the landscape with which they identify themselves culturally. The existing housing stock is disconnected from the landscape and in turn, the people lack connection to their built fabric. Rural populations with little to moderate contact with urban settlements, like Moerewa in Northland, are forecast to shrink. These small towns, however, are still the back bone of our agricultural sector and act as critical features of our economic and cultural identity as a country. In recent decades these towns have received little attention and resources, resulting in a degenerated physical fabric and declining population. To re-establish the relationship between the built and the landscape, and the built and the people in the context of Moerewa, it is necessary to understand the way in which these connections are developed. This project focused on how the optic and the haptic are intrinsically tied, where the understanding of one is through the other.

This design research sought to investigate a tripartite: the way in

which buildings are perceived in the landscape, the way in which the building operations connect to the landscape, and the way in which people occupy the building. In this manner, the architecture frames the perception of the landscape through use. The opportunity exists to reestablish these relationships in the architecture of rural housing. This thesis argues by reconfiguring the house to construct a dialogue with the conditions of the context, both physical and cultural, housing will again find a place as a social and cultural investment.

Supervisor: Sam Kebbell

Erin Shillington MArch (Prof)

Japanese Garden Houses

Strategies for creating an interface with nature in New Zealand walk-up apartments

New Zealanders have a proud tradition of living close to nature. The high interface between nature and traditional New Zealand dwelling is referred to as the “quarter-acre dream” by Mitchell (1972). However, the recent intensification of New Zealand cities has resulted in the development of higher density, multi-unit dwellings that have little interface with nature. These are necessary to reduce urban sprawl Auckland alone is expected to require an additional 400,000 homes within the next 30 years. Therefore, a medium density housing model that has a high nature-dwelling interface has potential use in architecturalpractice.Incontrast,manyJapanesehousesareeffectively integrated with nature. For the purpose of this research, the term “Japanese Garden House” will refer to Japanese houses in which the garden is an integral part of the architecture, as opposed to a separate

spatial entity. The adaptation of the Japanese Garden House for the New Zealand context is proposed as a mechanism to reconnect urban dwellings with nature, thus increasing the interface between nature and inhabited space. This may provide significant advantages as the interface between dwellings and nature has been shown to provide many health benefits, including a positive effect on psychological and physiological wellbeing.

Supervisor: Chris McDonald

Samuel Skogstad MArch (Prof)

An Architecture of Solas

The thesis investigates the place of the architecture of the individual coastal dwelling in mitigating the future effects of Solastalgia, the notion of place-based distress stemming from changes occurring in the environment. With the projected effects of climate change including a rise in sea levels and an increase in extreme coastal weather events; and with many of New Zealand’s principal areas of inhabitation laying along the coast these future events and the physical and less tangible psychological effects arising from them are becoming a both pressing issue and a mobilising idea.The thesis examines three theoretical imperatives to frame the proposed dwellings within current discourse.

Firstly the work of Glenn Albrecht and his notion of Solastalgia was looked at, as a means to understand the psychological effect of changes in our home environment on the perception of comfort and the dwelling. Secondly it explores the notion of dwelling as retreat, both in a physical and experiential sense. Thirdly through examining the dwelling as a focal point for an experiential connection with

the unique conditions of the coastal edge it will question the home as merely a refuge or place of retreat and shelter and investigate it through the seemingly oppositional notion of engagement. The architectural design comprises of three dwellings respectively titledThe Outpost,The Cave andThe Nest. Each articulates a distinct approach to retreat and engagement through the architectural notions of ground relationship, permanence, site specificity, and through questioning the expected qualities associated with the two primary materials timber and concrete. The dwellings are sited in Island Bay Wellington, a site chosen for its high exposure to the elements and rich history of coastal living. Each dwelling is positioned to exploit a specific condition of the coastal edge; The Outpost touching the sea, The Cave set between sea and hill, and The Nest sited upon the hill face itself. The dwellings act as exemplars for a proactive future looking approach to dwelling upon this coastal edge, and are engaged as a means to examine through design the implications this has for domestic coastal architecture.

Supervisor: Philippe Campays

Michael Smith MArch (Prof)

Architecture as Cultural Medium

Architecture schools are often isolated from the profession and the public they serve both pedagogically and physically, and often this is justified. Schools are not typically very public. However, schools could play a much greater role in the stimulation of a public discussion around architecture. This thesis explores how architecture could stimulate that discussion and ultimately how architecture could frame that discourse? The facilities of an architecture school that are predominately designated as public (lecture theatre, gallery space and auditorium) are often not easily accessible, and consequently there is a sense from the public that they are on ‘somebody else’s turf’. The problem is that the public facilities (where discourse is at its most public within a school) are not genuinely public (where citizens of the city feel like those spaces are equally ‘theirs’ and not just ‘belonging’ to the students). The discourse is not framed for public engagement, and therefore fails to stimulate any public discourse on architecture. The thesis analyses the critique of three academics: Beatriz Colomina, Hal Foster and

Marshal McLuhan who examine the spatial implications of media output. The thesis proposes that architecture has the opportunity to be reconfigured as a media device and examines methods in which this can be achieved. It is proposed that the reconfiguration of architecture as media output provides the creative opportunity to propel the introverted spatial conditions of an architectural school into the public sphere. The proposed design, a visiting school and integrated temporary accommodation, induces a set of spatial conditions that enable an examination how architecture can both frame and stimulate the public discourse in which architecture is already implicated. The thesis argues that architecture can and should be a vehicle for public discourse by way of framing that discourse on the one hand and overtly stimulating it on the other.

Specifically, architecture has the capacity to contribute to public discourse through the visual affects of form making and the social implications of that same form.

Supervisor: Sam Kebbell

Deborah Stace

MIA

Urban Interiority

An exploration of the construction of interior space through questioning the role of the bus shelter within our urban fabric

The discipline of interior architecture suffers from a lack of discipline specific theory, a definitive title and definition, and an understanding by the general public of the role and scope of this area of design. Many definitions view interior architecture/design as only existing within the context of architecture and the discipline is often considered secondary or inferior to that of architecture. However a recent growth in interest and discussion around interiors and the issues facing this emerging discipline has highlighted the fact that those within the discipline are seeking new meanings and definitions of interior space.Architecture as a prerequisite to interiors has come into question, which also questions our understanding of how interiority is constructed. This thesis will look at the construction of interiority through questioning the role of the bus shelter within our urban fabric. The generic steel and perspex/ glass constructions that populate much of our contemporary urban landscape are a built form that arguably cannot be considered as either architecture or interior space. This research proposes three different

roles that the bus stop could assume within our cities - as a moment of pause, as public space, and as non-place.Through these investigations three different methods of constructing interiority are identified and examined - interior as shelter, as place-making, and as atmosphere.

Overall the research suggests that the discipline of interior architecture should not be restricted to an architectural definition and that there are multiple ways that interior space can be constructed without the prerequisite of architectural form. The construction of shelter, atmosphere and place-making, within or without a built context, can all be seen as interior strategies that facilitate the construction of interior space.

Supervisor: Penny Allan

Krytal Stephen MArch (Prof)

Primary Housing

Schools have traditionally been seen as closed off institutions and have been designed accordingly.Although modern thinking has progressed, the design of the New Zealand school building has not. With the community feeling unwelcome on school grounds, any increase in community involvement in the school is undermined. Academically, involvement by the community in the school improves student learning outcomes. Financially, the school grounds are deserted outside of school hours, and community buildings outside the school are under resourced and only intermittently used. The inclusion of community facilities allows for more money to be invested in the school, with higher quality amenities for both students and the public. This thesis investigates what form the school building type could take in order to break down the traditional physical boundaries between the school

and the wider community. This design strategy aims to create a sense of continuity between the school and the community as a means of inviting the community into the school. Design has been utilised as a means of investigating how the traditional idea of boundary can be reimagined and moulded to facilitate a sense of continuity between the school and the community.

Supervisor: Sam Kebbell

Cameron Suisted

MArch (Prof)

The Last Resort

Building Big Architecture in Big Landscapes

Accommodating large groups of people typically requires large architecture. However, in precious landscapes, such as National Parks, large architectural interventions are often opposed on the grounds of an aesthetic cost to the landscape. In attempts to mitigate this ‘cost’, architecture is often miniaturized and camouflaged - composed in such a way that is ‘sympathetic’ with the landscape. The ideal of both approaches is an invisible building. Inevitably, as no building is invisible, the discipline should explore other formal strategies, which are neither invisible nor an aesthetic expense, but which enhance the landscape such that it is more intelligible, more spectacular or more dramatic.

Several interventions concerning local infrastructure and contested land ownership within Te Urewera are constructed through destructive operations - offering a paradoxical formal strategy for building within the landscape. While not constructed as ‘art’ these pragmatic interventions can be examined within such a context. Containing notions of both landscape and architecture, the operations at Te

Urewera could be situated within Rosalind Krauss (1979) expanded field diagram, within the categories of ‘Marked site’ and ‘Site construction.’

While Krauss’ projects acted on the culturally ‘neutral’ landscape of the desert or the open field, the operations within the largely untouched, yet highly contested landscape of Waikaremoana intensifies the local findings. Implementing a research through design methodology, large architectural interventions within Te Urewera should respond to the constructive and destructive operations of land alteration.

Occupying form constructed from largely destructive operations, also offers relatively unexplored opportunities for the discipline.

Opposing discrete, and camouflaged responses, architecture should be encouraged to boldly confront the landscape - generating mass-void interplays between constructed/destructed form and its surroundings.

Supervisor: Sam Kebbell

David Sullivan MLA

Paradise Lost

The traditional approach within landscape architecture to rejuvenate a distressed ‘lost’ urban site is to ‘cap’ the problem with a more desirable landscape. This thesis argues that such an approach simply creates a ‘green bandage’ to the problem without actually resolving the real issues behind the failure of the space. That is, the social and identity issues of the site and how to reconcile them with a physical space. Elements of urban ruin and degeneration can become active participants in an urban narrative that engages the history of the site and its place within the evolution of the urban context. Time plays a significant role in the understanding and developing of landscape as a system that is never static, and is always reflective of the layers of history beneath its transient surface. The proposed site for this thesis design research investigation is the Clifton St car park; it is a site that represents a multitude of identities, none of which actually engage with the reality of the history and actuality of the site. The site is a direct response to the overlaying of the standardised urban grid to the east, suburban grids

to the west and a rift caused by the government’s failure to complete the motorway extension. It is a site that should be important to the functioning of a city; however, it acts as, and is therefore perceived as, a lost site, a placeless place. The principal objective of this research thesis is to challenge why these in-between spaces must always remain tinged with placelessness and challenge how to deal with the space in such a way which will enable the city to actually benefit from such sites through their ability to deliver spatial narrative in the urban context and to facilitate a new typology of design.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Firdaus Sunhaji MArch (Prof)

The Breathing House

In a tropic country such as Malaysia, the outdoor climate is a monotonous fluctuation of hot and humid theme. Architectural forms and programs that do not address the local climate will lead to poor thermal performance of a building. Most residential buildings in Malaysia are prototypes of foreign designs that have been directly adopted without much modification. They are perceived as superior and modern, however, are often built without careful consideration of local climate and needs. To be a successful equatorial responsive building, the building architectural forms and programs have to address the four factors that contribute to thermal stress in a tropic country such as Malaysia. They are temperature, solar radiation, humidity and glare. Traditional houses have been built based on the understanding of these four factors. Notable features of good ventilation performance have been found to predominate others in providing relief from thermal

discomfort in Malaysia. Features of Malay traditional architectural forms and programs are examined in this thesis to understand their passive ventilation principles that capable of reducing thermal stress in tropic Malaysia. ‘The Breathing House’, the house with excellent ventilation performance, a residential complex proposed in Precinct 4 Putrajaya is the translation of this understanding.

Supervisor:Tobias Danielmeier

Melissa Thompson MArch (Prof)

Regeneration of Classical Stage

Reviving Palmerston North city through a traditional Opera House

Arbitrary forms emerging from the 21st century demonstrate a change in our understanding of great architecture. Nowadays, our cities host modern icons that exist as photographic attractions imposing on living space, instead of invigorating it. The everyday performance of life has been excommunicated from important public buildings.

Traditional principles of Classicism that guided design through to the Renaissance period have become lost in the new technologically driven world. Drawing from antiquity, there is an opportunity to reinstate civic architecture as the creation of a pleasurable journey, not just a destination. This thesis seeks to regenerate a disconnected city centre through the design of a traditional public building – the opera theatre, advocating architecture as the key to civic engagement. Theatre typology once immersed the populace in the city, the building itself structured by formal ordering and the performance of the audience.

Palmerston North is inland and primarily defined by a centre point, the Square, which has degraded over time to a series of pedestrian

shortcuts, cut off from its surroundings by a vehicular edge, rather than prevailing as a hub of public activity. The city’s only proscenium stage, Regent on Broadway, is wedged within a dead shopping street that was once the heart of the city, abandoned slowly as the extension and renovation of the mall progressed. Originally a cinema, its design is inadequate for Palmerston North due to its inability to host large productions and encourage public activity. Through the design of a new theatre, Regeneration of Classical Stage develops a framework for the rejuvenation of a modern city with traditional methods, using cannons derived from an analysis of Classical attributes. Public buildings that are formed out of historic notions can enliven our cities, using places of performance to encourage the stage of public life.

Supervisor: Peter Wood

Chloe Walbran MIA

The Interiority of Sleep and Power

This thesis explores interior immensity through the framework that targets the human being’s most inner self: the time human being’s spend sleeping. The in-between state of sleep is left overlooked in architecture and leaves room for novel exploration. While spending time in a semi- conscious state, we can delve into the realms of the unknown. The primary goal is to challenge the conventional interior space of backpackers in New Zealand by inhabiting the beautiful ugliness of an industrial site. The boundary between the individual and mechanical piece of architecture is explored through

a whimsical intimacy. A hydro-electric power station is the chosen apparatus. The power station allows a duality between operation and narration, between thematic qualities and program. The abnormalities hype the super-imagination of the client, somewhat like experiencing a dream state, the most active and often fantastic aspect within the threshold of consciousness.

Supervisor

Katherine Walker

MArch (Prof)

Rebuilding the Villas

The Block as a Shared Dwelling

Renovation of nineteenth-century housing is losing viability both economically and culturally.The combination of a growing, increasingly diverse population in Wellington and underperforming housing is driving the need for new, medium density dwellings in the innercity suburbs. The Victorian villa as an adaptable typology has been exploited in many ways, but often these renovations and replacements have missed crucial opportunities to allow households access to meaningful green space, to increase constructive neighbourhood density and to provide for changing demographics. The result is a loss of neighbourhood character and coherence, reinforcing isolation, and an awkward relationship between housing and its context. The thesis presupposes the opportunity to upgrade the fabric of an inner-city suburban block. Considering the block as a whole allows its potential as housing to be explored: What mechanisms can be employed to upgrade an entire block of individual 19th century houses into medium density housing in Wellington’s inner-city suburbs?

Through design-led research in Newtown, Wellington, and through analysis of shared spaces both in Wellington and overseas, a designed solution is developed and examined for its strengths and weaknesses in local conditions. Using knowledge gained from various European shared-dwellings as case studies and taking inspiration from communities-in-formation already in Newtown a set of key mechanisms are developed. These mechanisms could be extrapolated to apply to a range of inner-suburban situations that tend towards a block formation.

The thesis will demonstrate that shared-living typologies are viable household types for New Zealand’s growing population, providing an interesting, and mostly unexplored, field for architectural endeavour.

Supervisor: Sam Kebbell

Bradley Ward MLA

Deconstructing the Edge

Ports have been a vital part of the evolution of cities across the world.

They were the drivers of industry and commerce; and employers of cities – they were the place in which the metropolis was developed around.

Over the last century port cities have evolved away from their portbased industries (which provided the basis for their economy) towards a global economy of commerce and tourism.The harbour fronts, originally settled for the agglomeration of overseas trade, become situated in close proximity to expanding urban centre’s. As contemporary urban environments progressively expand over time, the original commercial / industrial outer edges often find themselves located within the heart of the ever-expanding city. Through continuous urban population growth there is a desperate need for expansion and industrial sites become crucial areas for this development. Wellington’s Centre Port provides a prime example with its vast size, vicinity to the city centre and open flat land. Centre Port was and is a thriving economic zone but the economy is changing and this area is now seen as essential to the development

and expansion of the city. This thesis questions how the future design ofindustrialzonesadjacenttocities’CentralBusinessDistricts(CBD)can be strategised to enable new and diverse programmatic elements to inhabit the same space. The work of Tricia Cusack, Charles Waldheim, Alex Wall, James Corner and Carole Hein will be critically engaged to address this unique form of urban expansion relating to identity, the water’s edge, multi-programmatic layers, and the changing face of industrial ports in the 21st century. The thesis examines how a city such as Wellington can progressively enable the expansion of new urban infrastructure into port-operated land whilst retaining a functional and economical port, enabling syntax between the expanding urban fabric and operational commercial port industry.

Supervisor: Daniel Brown

Sylvia Wilson MLA

Island Ideology

New Zealand’s projected pristine landscape does equate to an environmental reality. Loss of water and air quality as a result of both agricultural and urban pollution has contributed to a widespread drop in environmental status for New Zealand over the past ten years.

While the wilderness landscape continues to be idealised, the urban landscape is not similarly valued for its natural qualities, and becomes the contributor to overall lessening environmental health. This thesis examines the role of landscape architecture in engaging the culture/ nature dichotomy. Initial investigation examines the tendency of environmental practice in New Zealand to isolate perceived ‘natural’ zones from the urban environment. Specific focus is placed on the use of mainland and offshore islands in New Zealand as refuges for nature within preservation practice. The notion of the island as an ideal natural landscape throughout Western history is investigated, alongside current use of offshore islands as natural sanctuaries within New Zealand environmental management. The island typology is then challenged to

become the basis of a new landscape ideal, engaging with the urban realm, one which encourages the interaction of urban process alongside natural flux. Landscape architectural strategies for engaging urban and ecological process are employed from two key bodies of theory/ practise – green infrastructure and the phenomenological experience of nature. Both play key roles in adapting the urban environment to develop and respond to natural processes occurring in the urban realm.

The outcome seeks to develop a landscape association between the urban landscape and preservation archipelago in the form of a large park/ urban renewal project located on the previously industrial Queens wharf, a site along the reclaimed Wellington City coastline.

Supervisor: Penny Allan

Myron Witham MLA

Re-inventing the Boulevard

This project explores the relationships between the traditional boulevard, multimodal urban transit corridor and green street to identify the viability of a new transit corridor model for a twentyfirst century city. Major transit corridors play an important role in the structuring and operation of cities, and Wellington’s Kent and Cambridge Terraces are no exception to this. Kent and Cambridge Terraces have been selected as the site for this design case study as they have remained relatively unchanged since the early-mid 20th century and are one of the few thoroughfares in New Zealand approximate the boulevard model. Kent and Cambridge Terraces are an important connection from Central Wellington to the surrounding suburbs.

The wide corridor provides an opportunity for a quality public space balanced with multimodal transit, but the current overwhelming dominance of vehicles have resulted in an undesirable pedestrian

space. This project will engage the contemporary demands of modern city, specifically the increasing emphasis on public transit, cycling and walking, and stormwater treatment within the corridors right of way.

The design research analyses a series of case studies from around the world examining the progression of each model and the qualities they hold. This research will enable an updated version of the transit corridor to be tested on the Wellington site.

Supervisor: Chris McDonald

Hannah Wolter MArch (Prof)

Taxonomy of Shadow

Light, as one of the most fundamental considerations of the architect, has long been investigated and carefully examined through architectural design and discourse. Its role in architecture is manifold, serving as a revealer of form, articulator and dissolver of boundaries and guider of inhabitants, and historically light has been used to inscribe meaning in architecture. However, the consideration of shadow in architecture is one which is often overlooked or disregarded. This research positions shadow as having a pivotal role in architecture and it sets out to destabilize the prevailing dichotomous relationship between light and shadow and the attached positive and negative connotations.

The methodology employed in this design research is based on what may be considered a taxonomy of architectural light and shadow.

The categories of shadow conditions (temporal, affective, ontological, perceptual, and logical) not only provide a way of organizing the design research, but they also dictate the primary spatial separations within the design itself.These separations eventuated into individual pavilions,

each with distinct programmes, within the overall programme of a bathhouse. This research is framed through both the programmatic requirements of the bathhouse and the specificities of a site containing existing military structures. Therefore the approach towards form and geometry is guided by the existing monolithic bunker typology, and the relationship between light and materiality is directed by the existing fabric and evidently, by water.This research proposes detailed modes of thinking about and designing for apertures, which subsequently offer different atmospheric qualities for the inhabitant.

Supervisor: Philippe Campays

Jeane Wrigley MArch (Prof)

Urban Brewing

This thesis project examines the contemporary place of breweries within an urban context. The ‘Urban Brewery’ is a typology of building not yet explored in its contemporary condition. Historically, Breweries have functioned as factories, with the primary objective being the mass production of Beer. These breweries function both physically and socially in isolation, and operate in a placeless environment.

However, contemporary forms of brewing and the consumption of beer has evolved into a socially dominated program. With a resurgence of interest in craft production, the consumption of beer and the process of brewing have developed their own culture. This

thesis explores the architectural opportunities presented by this new consumer culture. The outcome of this thesis is to create a ‘place’ for the contemporary production and consumption of craft beer, within an urban environment, of which is supported by the context of the ‘Urban Brewery’s’ siting, on the Queenstown waterfront.

Supervisor:Tobias Danielmeier

Venice Biennale 2012

Familial Clouds

A New Zealand Exhibition at the 13th International Architecture Venice Biennale, 2012

SeniorLecturerSimonTwose(VUW) and ProfessorAndrew Barrie (UoA) recently collaborated on an exhibition of their architectural work at the 13th VeniceArchitecture Biennale.Their installation, familial clouds, was part of a group show of international architects in the Palazzo Bembo, a 15th century building on the Grand Canal. The Biennale brings together research from international architects in response to a specific theme.

In 2012 the Biennale theme was ‘Common Ground’, curated by David Chipperfield, and was directed towards architectural practice as a form of research; how architects’ practice negotiates with wider social concerns, such as the city.

Twose and Barrie responded to the theme by using their own projects to discuss ‘common grounds’ in New Zealand architectural practice.

Barrie constructed a ‘family tree’ of New Zealand architecture which traced connections from architect to architect back to New Zealand’s practice beginnings, shown as a village of miniature paper figures.

Twose encircled the walls with a cloud of 550 miniature drawings,

models and 35mm slides which presented the design process of two buildings, the White house and the Concrete house. These were displayed using angled mirrors which encouraged various connections to be made across the exhibition space. The work shown by Twose and Barrie commented on architectural practice at two scales: the social connections in New Zealand’s short practice history and the intricate negotiations that are an invisible part of architectural production. These two approaches formed both landscape and cloud form within the exhibition.

The exhibition opened on 29 August and ran until 25 November 2012.

Course Coordinator

Chris MacDonald,

Supervisors

Penny Allan, Daniel Brown, Philippe Campays Tobias Danielmeier, Sam Kebbell, Christine McCarthy Chris McDonald, Tane Moleta, Jules Moloney, and Peter Wood

Cover Image

Simon Twose

Publisher

School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington.

Foreword

Chris MacDonald

Graphic Editors

Ben Allnatt and Phil Mark Copyright 2012 School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

Production Editor ISBN Victoria University of Wellington

Jan Smitheram 9780475124029 Faculty of Architecture and Design 139 Vivian Street, Te Aro Campus Wellington, 6140 t. +64 (04) 463 6200 f. +64 (04) 463 6204 e. architecture@vuw.ac.nz or design@vuw.ac.nz www.victoria.ac.nz/fad