In recent weeks (something about tragic airline promotions), the notion of the cougar has been roaming the airwaves (probably more than our streets).  Rather than Baudelaire’s notion of a flaneur (the more placid experience of the city through walking), a more aggressive and sexually-charged urban exploration is gaining currency in our city’s lexicon. Read the rest of this entry »

I remember many years ago there was a death in Cable Bay in Northland.  The area was deemed a wahi tapu.  There was to be no access to the restricted area, and the death was communally acknowledged through this marking of space.  I think this was the first time I had heard of this practice of temporarily and formally making a space restricted after death.  It seemed to make alot of sense. Read the rest of this entry »

Opened this week with princely aplomb, the symbol of New Zealand’s self-sufficient justice system, ironically begins its life with Royal approval. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a bit of an old chesnut but here we go again - lock ‘em up and throw away the keys.  This week it seems that Act and National are convinced that humanity can’t do what architecture is so good at - incarceration.  Their addition to the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, if enacted, will mean “no prospect of ever being freed for those convicted of murder or manslaughter.” Such thinking makes architecture the ultimate punishment. Read the rest of this entry »

Rough, cut or cooked …
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The Architectural Centre, having just put in a submission on the future of Wellington in the year 2040, where we had the pleasure of looking at the city as a whole, are of the opinion that in 30 years time the city will be very different from what we have now. Traffic needs of the city, currently throttling it to death in various places, need to be reassessed - and with a free mind.

Things like the Basin Reserve for instance, may not need to be continuously ringed with roads for traffic. Indeed, we are most concerned that the Basin Reserve is currently reserved mainly for use as a giant traffic roundabout - there are better uses for a Basin than that, and there are certainly better roundabouts. But what if the traffic was to go elsewere? While the traffic planners at Opus and the NZTA are crying “OverPass”, what if the traffic was to go in a tunnel?

Like just about any idea in the world, someone else has thought of it all before. Read the rest of this entry »

Who would want to be an architecture student?
For the full article, click here.
A grim story, with selected passages taken from The Times, England, October 15, 2009. Better to stay here this summer, than go abroad…

“Bad pay, few jobs and an uncertain future? Who’d want to be an architecture student in the current climate?
….This new bunch of architecture students, though, has added reasons to be worried. The recession has decimated the construction industry. Unemployment among architects has risen more than in any other profession. Architectural firms are in the red. Even Norman Foster’s fêted company has had its losses double in a year, from £8.5 million to £16.1 million — and that after laying off 400 staff. Fifteen years ago I graduated from the Bartlett during another recession. That was bad enough. This one, though, is a lot worse.
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