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.

(Source: http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/drums/wellington)

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.