Architecture / September 2016
October 2016 | June 2015-
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My favourite modernist building … Alington House
- Architectural Centre Inc
- I last went to the Alington house (Karori, 1962) 20 years ago as part of the Architectural Centre’s 50th Anniversary. I had been a couple of times before, and again I felt a feeling of calmness sweep over me – a sense of everything in its place. Perhaps this was due to the Golden Mean […]
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Karori, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Demolition by ignorance?
- Architectural Centre Inc
- On Saturday morning (10 September 2016) on The Nation, the Social Housing Minister, Paula Bennett, claimed that she was doing everything “humanly possible” to address the homelessness situation. It is undisputed that there is insufficient social housing, and not enough is being done fast enough. In early September, the media stated that there were “hundreds […]
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My favourite modernist building … Gordon Drake’s houses
- Architectural Centre Inc
- When did “modernist” work start and finish? What were its beginnings? Did it end upon the inception of the International Style? Is “modernist” work framed in the works of Gropius, Mies, Corbusier, Behrens, Wright, and so on? Did not the modern movement stir in c.1830 C.E. and end in c.1933 C.E.? Do the works of […]
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Architecture Week Event: Thursday 22 September
- Architectural Centre Inc
- NEW DREAMLAND: A panel discussion Mark Southcombe (VUW) and James Wallace (Studio Pacific Architecture), chaired by Christine McCarthy (President, Architectural Centre) The dream of a pavlova paradise – owning your own home on a quarter-acre section – no longer exists. The size of the section has halved, the size of the house has doubled, the price has increased exponentially […]
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Cars have never made good houses
- Architectural Centre Inc
- Ten years ago there were no beggars on the streets of Wellington. Today almost every walk through the CBD reveals the increase in poverty in New Zealand. The needs for begging obviously vary. One woman I spoke to had $80 of her benefit left after paying rent (and deductions from WINZ and the Department of […]
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My favourite modernist building … the Rotherham House
- Architectural Centre Inc
- My favourite modernist building (albeit one I haven’t visited) is the Rotherham House – one of the Group’s houses. The Group was formed primarily of Auckland architecture students in the late 1940s, who stated their intentions in their manifesto: We know there is another way of living in which a house is logically contrived for […]
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Rapid light Rail in Wellington
- Architectural Centre Inc
- Britomart in Auckland changed everything, and Len Brown was able to persuade John Key that rail was the urban transport future for main routes. Chris Laidlaw should do the same for Wellington to get NZTA funding for RLR to Kilbirnie and the airport. Classy Rapid Light Rail appeals to everyone including business. In 1993 we […]
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Kilbirnie, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand/Aotearoa (OpenStreetMap)
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Wellington Mayoral Candidates Respond
- Architectural Centre Inc
- ARCHITECTURAL CENTRE: 2016 questions for Wellington mayoral candidates. (n.b. We emailed candidates twice and asked for replies by Monday 12 September. We were unable to find contact details for Johnny Overton; we did not get replies from Jo Coughlan or Nick Leggett). We asked the candidates the following questions: 1. What is your favourite place […]
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Affordable (cost-effective sustainable) housing
- Architectural Centre Inc
- Unaffordable dwellings do not have the following characteristics: a) Urban & suburban dwellings located on public transport. b) Attached, either simple (plain) terraces or cubes (as close as possible to cubes), with hip or gable trussed roofs. The next priority is semi-detached houses in cubes, and the last is detached houses each within a cube […]
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My favourite modernist building … state houses
- Architectural Centre Inc
- The state houses of the First Labour Government (1935-1949) are justly famous but have never been embraced by architects, and now increasingly the public take them for granted. Over 30,000 were built in the term of that government to address a housing shortage and there is a lot we can learn from the programme in […]
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My favourite modernist building … College House
- Architectural Centre Inc
- A mature work by what was at the time a young practice. Architecture is foremost about creating space and College House, Christchurch (Warren and Mahoney, 1964-70) does this. Much better than most. The quad is the star. In the finest tradition it organises the site. It is well proportioned and is surrounded by the buildings. […]
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My favourite modernist building … Nordic Pavilion
- Architectural Centre Inc
- Sverre Fehn’s 1962 Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale is a building that transfers Nordic light to Venice. It is a “light device” to sharpen the famous Venetian haze and modify its humid temperature, dematerialising as the Venetian light filters through the impossibly thin structural blades forming the pavilion ceiling. There are no internal supports. […]
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