The Architectural Centre Inc

Category: Comment

  • City Barriers

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    Timber posts with nautical rope strung between them are being proposed for segments of the Manners Mall in Wellington, in an effort to stop people crossing the road ‘illegally’. The proposal is by a WCC Councilor, Leonie Gill, who appears shocked and horrified that Wellingtonians have such a care-free attitude to crossing the road. Several…

  • The Death of Post-Modernism

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    They say that you never forget where you were, or what you were doing, when a major event happens – Man Walking on the Moon, John F Kennedy’s assassination, the destruction of the Twin Towers, or the All Blacks winning the World Cup (in the case of myself, and I suspect many of us, it…

  • MVRDV LOL FAIL

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    While most of the world seems to sit in economic stagnation, twiddling thumbs and sucking the ends of 2B pencils in hope of the next job, Dutch practice MVRDV have forged ahead, unleashing design philosophies and large tomes of their (mostly paper) work onto an unsuspecting public. In their latest case however, it seems to…

  • Learning from Christchurch – or not.

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    Cr Andy Foster’s comment over on EyeoftheFish regarding issues of eq preparedness in Wellington highlight, for me at least, something of the difficulties of this particular discussion

  • Prefab to the Rescue

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    Attending the latest PrefabNZ event last week, we were treated to the sight of a school project being completed in what must surely be record time, for the replacement of a school teaching block. This has strong ramifications for Wellington, where just this week a number of government buildings, such as Courthouses in the provinces,…

  • Dealing with Wgtn traffic on a wing and a prayer

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    I’ve been re-thinking. What if, concerning the whole Basin/Option X thing, we went right back to the fundamentals of the situation and began from there? Forget flyovers and tunnels, Options A, B, X, X+, and KY(!); forget Sussex Street, Memorial Park, and even the Basin itself. What are the fundamental issues?

  • Apple strudel

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    A small post, updating the one we posted last year – Apple have just unveiled the revised glass cube on 5th Avenue, the world’s most prolific retail spot. The architecture, such as it is, has been reduced even further: from 90 panes of glass down to just 15, or so we are told. As the…

  • A Bach on the Mall

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    So the competition is now over, with the 19 solar-powered houses removed from site and packed away. West Potomac Park goes back to it’s former life as a place for quiet riverside baseball diamonds, with squirrels scampering happily across the grass. By all accounts, the team from New Zealand did very well indeed. Victoria University’s…

  • Basin voting

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      Well, the Council have voted on the city’s official position with respect to central government’s proposed traffic improvements near the Basin Reserve.

  • Colchester’s firstsite

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    The opening of a gallery is an exciting day for any contemporary art organization.   Firstsite in Colchester, the site of Britain’s first Roman city, are no doubt to be congratulated on achieving such a large new space, designed by Rafael Vinoly, to support their exhibition programme.