Cob Jobs
Miss M and I have just returned from a memorable road trip round the top of the South Island which culminated with a drive through the DOC administered Molesworth Station.
Its 180,787 hectare area makes it the largest farm in New Zealand. There are several active fault lines transecting the property causing horizontal jolts often triggering landslides and rockfalls. Hot and dry summers are followed by harsh winters. Snow may fall at any time of the year, some years covering the entire property for up to eight weeks in winter.
Where has all the colour gone?
We did some drawings recently to assist in the restoration of a turn of the century villa in Mt.Victoria.
As it neared completion, I offered to do a paint colour scheme free of charge. To me, colour is a really important dimension of design. I never heard back from the owners.
I wasn’t going to propose garish primaries, but but a sophisticated, refined colour palette to enhance the basic shapes, elements and decorative elements, but I didn’t get the chance.
A subsequent drive-by revealed that purveyors of pallid from the institution of insipidity, had got the clients ear. (Certainly not his eye, I thought.) Read More
Born Again Cathedral
Euthanasia is not an Anglican belief, yet the Anglican hierarchy wants the Christchurch Cathedral killed off. This poor damaged building apparently doesn’t qualify as sanctity of life.
Theologian Richard Hooker, a founding father of Anglicanism, speaks of scripture, reason and tradition, as the three divines of the faith.
Where is the reason in either of the polarised options: brutal demolition, or unimaginative stone by stone restoration.
Now a couple of structural engineers blessed with imagination, are demonstrating a third way.
They propose to stabilise the walls and the roof, keep the building alive, and make it safe for the future by weaving the retained old stonework with something new.
There are precedents for this including Peter Zumthor’s religious art museum in Cologne.
Awkward Debates
For those of you who think architecture is for the wealthy, perched on their stunning sites overlooking some stunning estuary waiting for the glossy magazine photographer to arrive, let me tell you about my friend Mark Roberts.
Over several years Mark has worked the gritty side of life.
He has worked in three challenging areas: prisons (correction facilities) in New Zealand, aboriginal communities (think the film Samson & Delilah) in the Northern Territories of Australia, and in earthquake ravaged Christchurch.
These experiences led him to organise the ‘Awkward Debates’ which started last week at the School of Architecture with the second in the series tomorrow night.
So a big ‘shout out’, as the kids say, for these important events and if you’re interested in attending contact mark.roberts@vuw.ac.nz.
How can good design improve the lives of the incarcerated, the indigenous and the anticipation of Christchurch’s future?
RIP Peter Beaven
Let me add to the many tributes paid to a dear colleague and mentor Peter Beaven who passed away this week. The architectural tributes are understandably glowing.
My thinking is that while his lungs eventually gave in, I know his heart would have been as big and passionate as ever.
That heart gave me such inspiration in dealing with the academic constraints at the Auckland School of Architecture in the late sixties. His influence on my own modest romantic notions and emerging passion for architecture was enormous.
He not only loved buildings, perhaps almost as much as women, but he actually built them. Lots of them. The ones that survived the seismic attack, must be preserved, now that he is gone. Read More
