Inhabitable art

Wel­ling­ton Archi­tec­ture Week kicks off next Monday, includ­ing everything from a vis­it to the exquis­ite and hid­den Futuna Chapel to a sand­castle com­pet­i­tion on Petone Beach.

My Wel­lUrb­an post gives a bit of con­text, includ­ing links to rel­ev­ant devel­op­ments and con­tro­ver­sies, and the full illus­trated pro­gramme (in glor­i­ous black, white and blue) is avail­able on the Archi­tec­tur­al Centre web­site, but here’s a text list­ing of all events.

Monday

Crime and Design
12.15pm Museum of Wel­ling­ton City and Sea
Avoid crime by bet­ter design. This pan­el dis­cus­sion takes a close look at how archi­tec­tur­al design and the use of space impacts on crime and crime pre­ven­tion.
Pan­el­ists: Rob Stevens, Archi­tect, Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions; Geor­gina Thompson, Wel­ling­ton Rape Crisis; Jeremy Wood, Min­istry of Justice

Pilk­ing­tons Key­note lec­ture: Richard Fran­cis-Jones (FJMT, Aus­tralia)
7pm, Ruther­ford House, VUW
Richard is a Part­ner of Fran­cis-Jones More­henThorp (fjmt) and has been the Design Dir­ect­or for many highly acclaimed com­pet­i­tion win­ning and RAIA award win­ning pro­jects. Awards include: the Lach­lan Macquar­ie Award for Con­ser­va­tion, the MIPIM/AR ‘International Pro­ject AwardÂ’, the Sir Zel­man Cowen Award, the Sul­man Award, the Lloyd Rees Civic Design Award, the Nation­al Interi­or Archi­tec­ture Award and the Can­berra Medal­lion. Most recently fjmt was awar­ded the 2005 Sir John Sul­man Medal­lion for archi­tec­ture and the 2005 Gre­en­way Award for Con­ser­va­tion for the Mint pro­ject on Macquar­ie Street, Sydney. This is the first time in the his­tory of the awards that a single pro­ject has received both pres­ti­gi­ous awards.

Tues­day

The Painted Ladies of old San Fran­cisco
12.15pm, Museum of Wel­ling­ton City and Sea
Kar­en War­dell, Col­our Design & Col­our Edu­ca­tion, Nel­son
Take a tour through time and some of the glor­i­ous wooden build­ings from the Vic­tori­an era with four or more col­ours on their facades. Com­pare these fam­ous houses with some of our own styles in Wel­ling­ton.

Open Prac­tices
Andrew Sex­ton Archi­tec­ture, 4.30–7.30pm, Level 10 175 Vic­tor­ia Street
Island Archi­tects, 4.30–6.30pm, Unit 17, 13 Leeds Street, Han­nah Ware­house Build­ings – Entrance next to Pizza Pomodoro, Te Aro, Wel­ling­ton, ph. 384 7170
Peddle Thorp & Mont­gomery, 4.30–6.30pm, Level 3, 23 War­ing Taylor St, ph. 472‑1666
Stu­dio Pacific Archi­tec­ture, 74 Cuba Street – Level 2: Stu­dio Pacific will be show­ing a selec­tion of recent and cur­rent pro­jects from around New Zea­l­and. The prac­tice has been in its pur­pose-designed offices for just over a year, and this is the first time their new offices will be open to the pub­lic.

Wed­nes­day

Health, hous­ing, and avoid­ing squal­id apart­ments
12.15pm, Museum of Wel­ling­ton City and Sea
Can your home really make you ill? Find out how your home meas­ures up and what you can do to make your house, apart­ment or castle a bet­ter place to live in at this pan­el dis­cus­sion examin­ing issues to do with health and hous­ing.
Pan­el­ists: Phil­lipa Howden-Chap­man, School of Medi­cine, Uni­ver­sity of Otago; Tracey Moore, Hous­ing New Zea­l­and; Christina Mack­ay, School of Design, Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity

6 o’c­lock views: Design­ing for an Older New Zea­l­and: more than adding hand­rails to bath­rooms!!
6pm, Law School, Old Gov­ern­ment Build­ings
We’re all get­ting older and wiser – but how will this impact on archi­tec­ture and design? As our bod­ies age design can make a sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ence as to wheth­er liv­ing is pleas­ure­able or dif­fi­cult. The increas­ingly aged pop­u­la­tion means that the design of our homes, our cit­ies, and our mobil­ity is a crit­ic­al issue for all of soci­ety. What are the cur­rent and future issues relat­ing to accom­mod­a­tion options for older people? What spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tions are made when design­ing liv­ing spaces and the things that go in them?
Guest speak­ers: Judith Dav­ey, Dir­ect­or, New Zea­l­and Insti­tute for Research on Age­ing, VUW; Patri­cia Moore, Pres­id­ent, Moore­Design Asso­ci­ates, inter­na­tion­ally renowned geron­to­lo­gist and design­er; Gor­don Hold­en, Head, School of Archi­tec­ture, Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity

Thursday

Can archi­tec­ture save the plan­et?: Archi­tec­ture and Cli­mate Change
12.15pm, Museum of Wel­ling­ton City and Sea
We all know about cli­mate change is an urgent issue – but what does it mean for archi­tec­ture and the built envir­on­ment. What can we as cli­ents or design­ers do about it? This pan­el dis­cus­sion looks at archi­tec­ture and cli­mate change, and how the way we build­ing can affect wider issues on the plan­et.
Pan­el­ists: Peter Bar­rett, Ant­arc­tic Research Centre; Alex Couch­man, War­ren and Mahoney ESD Prin­cip­al; Alex­an­dra Hills, Research Fel­low, Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity

The Pivotal Archi­tec­tur­al Debate: “Urb­an design­ers should leave her­it­age alone”
7pm, Te Papa
Our cit­ies are a site of con­flict – built her­it­age versus future growth – and in the middle are urb­an design­ers, wrest­ling with an ever-grow­ing city and their own desire to cre­ate “a sense of place.” Her­it­age build­ings are often toppled or usurped for shal­low aes­thet­ic imagery, but per­haps this is all they are good for? … Sup­port­ers of his­tor­ic places fer­vently dis­agree – her­it­age is more than just old good looks!! The ques­tion then is: Should urb­an design­ers be involved in decisions about the value of her­it­age? – or should they just leave her­it­age well alone?

Fri­day

60 years young!: the Wel­ling­ton Archi­tec­tur­al Centre on cel­lu­loid
12.15pm, NZ Film Archive
As any­one involved in archi­tec­ture in Wel­ling­ton knows – the Wel­ling­ton Archi­tec­tur­al Centre cel­eb­rates its 60th anniversary this year. To acknow­ledge this achieve­ment, this film selec­tion looks at Wel­ling­ton archi­tec­ture over the last sixty years, high­light­ing the audio-visu­al record of the Archi­tec­tur­al Centre and its mem­bers from its early days of the Demon­stra­tion House, through the battles to save build­ings such as Old St Pauls and the Wel­ling­ton Club, and more recent times.

Book Coun­cil Key­note lec­ture: Douglas lloyd Jen­kins, “Watch this Space”
6pm, Nation­al Lib­rary, $12.00
Douglas lloyd Jen­kins is a well-known and out-spoken crit­ic on New Zea­l­and archi­tec­ture and design. Formerly an Asso­ci­ate Pro­fess­or at UNITEC, Auck­land, he is now the Dir­ect­or of the Hawke’s Bay Museum & Art Gal­lery, Napi­er. Douglas has been a long-time colum­nist for the New Zea­l­and Her­ald, and the Listen­er. He is a con­trib­ut­or to magazines such as Archi­tec­ture New Zea­l­and, Her­it­age, and New Zea­l­and Home and Enter­tain­ing. He has recently pub­lished sig­ni­fic­ant books “At Home: a Cen­tury of New Zea­l­and Design” (2004) and “New Dream­land: Writ­ing New Zea­l­and Archi­tec­ture” (2005), as well as present­ing tele­vi­sion pro­grammes, such as “New Zea­l­and At Home.” Book ahead at the Book Coun­cil web­site.

Sat­urday

Draw Wel­ling­ton: Inter­act­ive pub­lic and archi­tec­tur­al stu­dents event
11am to 2pm Cuba Mall, the City to Sea Bridge, Te Papa fore­court, Calzone foot­path on Cour­tenay Place, and Mid­land Park.
This annu­al archi­tec­tur­al design event is a spon­tan­eous per­form­ance, inter­act­ive draw­ing event which sees first year archi­tec­ture stu­dents from Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity WellingtonÂ’s School of Archi­tec­ture engage with six inner-city sites. This event is jointly organ­ised by Fiona Chris­teller Archi­tects, Judi Keith-Brown Archi­tect, and VUW School of Archi­tec­ture 1st year stu­dents coordin­ated by Alex­an­dra Hills

Open Pro­jects
Rafe Maclean Archi­tects: A recently com­pleted house in Owhiro Bay will be open to view. Oth­er works in pro­gress will also be on show. 72a Owhiro Bay Parade, Owhiro Bay, 10am to 1pm. Con­tact: Rafe Maclean – Rafe Maclean Archi­tects, Ph: 384 5889)
Truby King House: Truby King Park, 21b Manchester Ter­race, open 1–5pm Tour of his­tor­ic and famed Truby King House, Mount Mel­rose by archi­tect Alex Greig.
The Dowse, 12 noon, Dowse, Lower Hutt: A rare oppor­tun­ity to take a guided tour through the nearly com­pleted Dowse redevel­op­ment. This tour fol­lows a present­a­tion from Ath­field Archi­tects (page ref). Tour num­bers are lim­ited so please con­tact The Dowse to book. Con­tact: tara.sellers@huttcity.govt.nz, 45 Laings Road, Lower Hutt, Ph: 5601470

Ath­field Archi­tects: The New Dowse (lec­ture)
11am, the Dowse
The New Dowse began with an invited com­pet­i­tion in 2000. The inter­ven­ing 6 years has seen a rig­or­ous inter­ac­tion of design, con­struc­tion, art, money, and man­u­fac­tur­ing with the out­come being a build­ing to pub­licly open in Feb 2007. Ath­field Archi­tects will dis­cuss this pro­cess, the com­pet­i­tion entry and the phys­ic­al real­ity to be toured on site today.

Sand castle Com­pet­i­tion
2pm, Petone Beach by the Petone Set­tlers’ Museum
Bring your lunch and sand-castle mak­ing tools (hands, buck­ets, spades etc), and accessor­ies. Prizes galore, with spe­cial awards for: most cre­at­ive, most sculp­tur­al, most struc­tur­ally sound and, of course, best castle made only from things found on the beach. Judges from dubi­ous and ortho­dox archi­tec­tur­al pro­fes­sions. Don’t for­get to check out the FREE exhib­i­tions at the Petone Set­tlers Museum. Food stalls will be at the beach to sup­ple­ment or replace b.y.o food sup­plies.

NAWIC Build­ings Tour: Archi­tec­ture by Women
2pm-5pm, ven­ue advised on book­ing
NAWIC (Nation­al Asso­ci­ation of Women in Con­struc­tion) will host a coach tour vis­it­ing a selec­tion of Wel­ling­ton build­ings where women archi­tects have played a key role in design or pro­ject man­age­ment. The bus tour will com­mence from cent­ral Wel­ling­ton loc­a­tions. Lim­ited num­bers. To book and for more inform­a­tion con­tact: Megan Smailes: megan.smailes@orica.com

Holcim Key­note: Anthea Hartg
7pm, Old St Pauls
Anthea Hartig dir­ects the Nation­al Trust for His­tor­ic PreservationÂ’s West­ern Office which now serves the six con­tin­ent­al far west­ern states along with Hawaii and Alaska. She served as a pre­ser­va­tion plan­ner for over a dec­ade, most recently at the Seni­or Plan­ner level for the City of River­side, and dir­ec­ted a cul­tur­al resources con­sult­ing firm. She has served on many loc­al and nation­al his­tory-related non-profit found­a­tions includ­ing the Cali­for­nia Pre­ser­va­tion Found­a­tion and the Cali­for­nia Coun­cil for the Pro­mo­tion of His­tory, and has pub­lished in both aca­dem­ic and pro­fes­sion­al journ­als.

Sunday

Site Vis­it: Old High Court
10am-1pm, 36–42 Stout St
The Old High Court is to be ren­ov­ated and a new build­ing built on the adja­cent site to accom­mod­ate the new Supreme Court of New Zea­l­and. Agree­ment has been reached that it will be open to the pub­lic on Sunday 8 Octo­ber from 10am until 1pm, entrance off Stout Street. Roy Wilson from War­ren and Mahoney, the archi­tects of the pro­ject, will give a present­a­tion at 10.30am. A scale mod­el of the pro­ject and draw­ings will also be on dis­play. This will be the only chance to access the build­ing before con­struc­tion starts.

Site Vis­it: Futuna Chapel
3–5pm, 62 Friend St, Karori, Please park on the road.
Vis­it this icon of New Zea­l­and bicul­tur­al archi­tec­ture. Recog­nised as the most import­ant build­ing built in C20th New Zea­l­and, Futuna’s sigini­fic­ance has been acknow­ledged by the New Zea­l­and Insti­tute of Archi­tects, the New Zea­l­and His­tor­ic Places Trust, Docomomo(NZ), the Wel­ling­ton City Coun­cil, and the Wel­ling­ton Archi­tec­tur­al Centre. Sadly in recent years the Chapel of Futuna has not been treated as well as it should have been – it’s most recent func­tion being a build­er­’s stor­age shed!! But hope is on the hori­zon, the build­ing is to be pur­chased by the Futuna Trust which is cur­rently fun­drais­ing money to buy and pre­serve Futuna Chapel for all New Zea­l­and – come and see what the fuss is about.

Site Vis­it: Antrim House
10am-4pm, 63 Boul­cott St
As a fant­ast­ic finale to Archi­tec­ture Week, Antrim House will be open to the pub­lic for tours. Built in 1905 for suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man Robert Han­nah, Antrim House has been home to many people as a fam­ily res­id­ence, private hotel, and hostel. Antrim House was built at the height of Robert Han­nah’s com­mer­cial suc­cess as head of the RJ Han­nah shoe empire. Lead­ing archi­tects of the time, Thomas Turn­bull and Son, were com­mi­s­ioned to design Antrim House. It now serves as the nation­al headquar­ters of the N.Z. His­tor­ic Places Trust.