Month: February 2009

  • Bad Taste: the horror inside NZ houses

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    The culinary seems to be passé, with both the Arch Centre and the FishEye seeing fit to blog on food and design in recent days. Today though it’s bad taste, rather than taste, which appears to be de rigor. Peter Jackson’s 1987 cult classic, Bad Taste, while being “purely vulgar trash,” “brain splattering,” and “repulsive…

  • Video of the Week VI: smack the pony – architects

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    Smack the Pony, according to Wikipedia, was a British sketch comedy show that ran from 1999 until 2003 on Channel 4 (some of you out there might have seen them?). Weirdly, its title was intended to sound like a euphemism for female masturbation – something I won’t tag this post with in case it gets too popular amongst a demographic that we are…

  • Is Nutrition the Answer to Everything?

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    Riding my bike into work this morning, the regular squeeze between car and kerb was suggesting immaterialisation would be my only option. Bloody SUVs. Why do they make cars so wide these days? Easy you say – because we are wider.

  • Hurrah for National Radio

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    Yes I know we’re all meant to say “Radio NZ: National” but National Radio rolls off the tongue so much easier. Anyway this weekend has had a number of interviews etc. which will be of interest to members. On Saturday Kim Hill interviewed Reid Ewing, Professor of City and Metropolitian Planning at the University of…

  • Aren’t Street Closures Fantastic?

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    At this very moment Courtney Place is under “Road Closure” while things are being set up for the glories of the Cuba St Carnival culminating in one of the best Wellington events of our calendar – the Cuba St Carnival Parade. But this is not only evidence of impending celebration but also a sample of…

  • Want Arch Centre updates direct to your reader?

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    Try pasting the following feed address into your feed reader subscriptions: http://architecture.org.nz/feed/ m-d

  • Arch Centre member lights up the world…

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    “A challenging job” is how Arch Centre member and doctoral candidate at the VUW School of Architecture, Amardeep Dugar, describes his recent appointment as Lighting Consultant to the Global Vipassana Pagoda in Mumbai, India. The Global Vipassana Pagoda, which aspires to pay homage to Buddha and his teachings,is currently in the final stages of construction. It will be…

  • The Flickr Travelogues – architectural eye-candy from the Jubilee Line Extension (London) Pt1

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    One of my favourite architectural memories from my time living in London was stumbling across the architecture of the Jubilee Line Extension (JLE) of the London Underground system – there is nothing quite like having an architectural experience without any form of warning whatsoever. Visiting the well-photographed Barcelona Pavilion, for example, had no such sharp edge…

  • Transport Priorities

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    Kerry Williamson today revealed in the Dom Post the regional councils transport priorities. That is to say those which they are petitioning the Government for assistance with. The top Items, with budgets, are as follows: TOP TRANSPORT PRIORITIES: Western Link Road stage 1 (Waikanae to Paraparaumu), $82 million. State Highway 1 Basin Reserve upgrade and bus lanes improvement,…

  • Video of the Week V: Los Angeles Plays Itself

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    Ok – enough of the sordid student activities (for now at least). How ’bout something a little more cerebral, in the form of a discussion of the role of Modernist houses in Hollywood movies. The somewhat droll announcer explores the association of villainy with Modernism – something to keep in mind when you pen the design for your next…

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