Returning in early 2009 after an absence of a couple of years, the 20 under 40 competition was once more staged by Arch Centre, this time with a concentration on the more relaxed side of Architecture – namely, a Play on Time. The brief was a short and gruesome one, set in the near distant future: the year is 2040 and New Zealand is once more in the grips of a depressing recession. Or perhaps that should be a receding depression. In any case, the good people of our fine country have lost the ability to laugh, to live, to love, to cry. The Ministry for Architecture is having dialogue with the Ministry of Play, and the Minister is about to unveil his plans for the new Play facility, when he is tragically run over on the new inner-city Monorail. The brief is for the entrants to piece together the remnants of the bloodied brief and put together their own vision of what a facility for Play might be. (more…)