Monday, July 29, 2013
Conversations on the Street
The pavement was having a chat on Cuba St.
Dear Figurative Expressions artists, This is a great exhibition. Love, an art student
Don't let the lights fool you
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Swan Lake
Was absolutely brilliant
I can't remember having seen a ballet before, so this may as well have been my first. The music, choreography, color, costume, were all absolutely enthralling.
I can't remember having seen a ballet before, so this may as well have been my first. The music, choreography, color, costume, were all absolutely enthralling.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
First Week, Second Trimester, Third Year
Wellington, together which much of central New Zealand was shaken by a 5.7 magnitude earthquake this morning, and then a smaller magnitude 4.5 later in the afternoon.
Coincidentally, our first project of the term is an earthquake museum, designed to explore New Zealand's relationship with earthquakes, and also provide a memorial for the victims of the Christchurch earthquake in 2011.
Integrated into the paper is a continuation of our structures education, and it will be exciting to learn more about seismically designed architectures.
The second project of the term explores traditional architecture within a non-western Pacific culture, and I am continuing my fascinating exploration of Maori architecture and cultural landscapes. Staring into the almost ghostly images reproduced in the books I am reading, taken in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sends shivers up my spine. Wreathed in a dull mist, the figures look back, and I just wonder what they saw...
(Source: Burton Bros. Houses at Parihaka pa, Taranaki. Reproduced in: Phillips, Willam. J. Maori Houses and Food Stores. Dominion Museum. 1952. )
The third project is a construction drawing assignment, for the moment focusing on the 'core' of a multi-story building, the place where the stairs and elevators are housed. I'm really interested in investigating how natural light and ventilation can be incorporated into these, possibly within an atrium style opening through the levels, and making a greater emphasis on the stairs and surrounding space as communal social space. The lecturer for the paper has in fact just published a thesis on the subject... Significant Social Space: Connecting Circulation in Atrium Design, ...which he was delighted to refer me to when I approached him about the idea.
A busy but exciting trimester ahead.
Coincidentally, our first project of the term is an earthquake museum, designed to explore New Zealand's relationship with earthquakes, and also provide a memorial for the victims of the Christchurch earthquake in 2011.
Integrated into the paper is a continuation of our structures education, and it will be exciting to learn more about seismically designed architectures.
The second project of the term explores traditional architecture within a non-western Pacific culture, and I am continuing my fascinating exploration of Maori architecture and cultural landscapes. Staring into the almost ghostly images reproduced in the books I am reading, taken in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sends shivers up my spine. Wreathed in a dull mist, the figures look back, and I just wonder what they saw...
The third project is a construction drawing assignment, for the moment focusing on the 'core' of a multi-story building, the place where the stairs and elevators are housed. I'm really interested in investigating how natural light and ventilation can be incorporated into these, possibly within an atrium style opening through the levels, and making a greater emphasis on the stairs and surrounding space as communal social space. The lecturer for the paper has in fact just published a thesis on the subject... Significant Social Space: Connecting Circulation in Atrium Design, ...which he was delighted to refer me to when I approached him about the idea.
A busy but exciting trimester ahead.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Erskine College
Cycling over a hill I hadn't explored before, I found a beautiful Edwardian / Gothic building and chapel; Erskine College. Now in disrepair and haunted by pigeons, it faces the prospect of demolition if it cannot be seismically strengthened.
Most recently it was used as a wedding venue, until April 2012 when the Wellington City Council ruled it was an earthquake risk and not safe for human occupation.
Originally built as a Convent of the Sacred Heart in 1905, with alumni including photographer Anne Nobel, it taught pupils until its closure in 1985, after which the buildings continued to be used for creative arts and festival events, and eventually a school of art until 2009 (Macdonald).
Image: Sacred Heart Convent, Island Bay, Wellington. Ref: 1/2-070494-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23075064
Listed as a heritage building by the Wellington City Council, and classified as Category 1 by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, the question becomes how to make this building profitable enough for developers to strengthen it, while maintaing the site's historic integrity. Because the best way to protect heritage is to occupy it, and continue writing its story. I just hope it doesn't turn into this:
But until the protecting trust, which maintains veto power of any plans, and the owners can come to any agreement (or the time on the red sticker runs out), Erskine College remains the home of an eerie cooing.
Updates can be found here http://www.facebook.com/SaveErskineCollege
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