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.
Eating outside my comfort box (heh)
Everyone knows that large corporations eat puppies, but what do the people who work for large corporations eat for lunch?
The Wellingtonista is closing down its Courtenay Place branch on Friday and is opening up in mid Lambton Quay instead. After a year and a half down this way, we’d just finally got the good people at Sahara Kebabs to know that we like just a few onions and garlic yoghurt, tahini and hot chilli on our (mixed vegetarian, mujaver and falafel only) kebabs. Where are we going to eat now?
Big shoes to fill
Most of the time it’s nice being the tallest female Wellingtonista (Martha and Natalie may get the column inches but I gots the height inches), but the trouble with being tall is that I need great big plates of meat as feet to support me. And you know what they say about girls with big feet – they need big shoes.
That’s why I’m so excited that Willow Shoes – a website I’ve been shopping from for years since they specialise in shoes size 10 and up – has just opened up a branch in Wellington, in my neighbourhood even, at 27 C Waitoa Road in Hataitai. This is going to be especially handy (or err footy, badoom chish) now that Minx Shoes have moved their factory outlet from Waikanae to Otaki.
We all knew Petone was part of Wellington
The Harbour Ward comprising Petone, Korokoro, Seaview, Gracefield and Eastbourne are launching a petition campaign over the next 2 weeks to gauge public support for the transfer of the HARBOUR WARD from Hutt City to Wellington City.
They allege that the Hutt Council has failed in its responsibilities to protect buildings, the parks, and the ageing citizens.
There are public meetings planned;
19th September 8pm Muritai School Hall, Eastbourne
26th September Senior Citizens Hall Silberry Place, off Kensington Street, Petone
From my perspective, I think Hutt Council has allowed some beautiful buildings to be annihilated and replaced with such fabulous structures as Rebel Sports.
I also think that the very witty billboard campaign they have at the moment has got up the noses of many Eastbourne residents (imagine implying Eastbourne residents are snooty – the cheek!), and they are behind this move.
I’d be happy to change to Wellington Council. They have cheaper rates. Plus, we all know that Petone is the Riviera of Wellington.
But what about the children?
There are hundreds – nay thousands – of possible venues in our fair city for children’s parties. Today I bring you one that I have recently used and enjoyed.
The YMCA on Tasman St is available for hire at a very reasonable rate. It is pretty rough, which actually is nice and relaxing when you have 20 under 4s hooning around. There are crash pads, a huge foam pit, beams, balls and lots of opportunities for kids to run themselves ragged.
You can take your own food and there is chilled water on site.
No alcohol allowed, so I’ll be rethinking it as a venue for my own birthday. A martini in that foam pit seems very appealing.
I didn’t spot a single Young Christian Man, nor did anyone perform YMCA. We had a goodly dose of the Spice Girls though.
YMCA of Greater Wellington INC
69 Tasman St Wellington 0-4-385 4091
The Player and the Advocate
Oscar is a hotshot young actor in the bustling Elizabethan Wellington theatre scene, loved by the Publick, but resented by the authorities. When he is kicked out of his theatre company for ‘improvising’, he must fight, not only to get his job back, but also to stop the Queen from pushing the country into all-out war…
What if Wellington were the centre of the Elizabethan world, pioneering an explosion in theatre, fashion, new music and coffeehouses at the birth of the modern age?
Awesome. The short pitch is ‘Whale Rider meets Shakespeare in Love’, but the above is the longer synopsis of the plot for The Player and the Advocate – a new film being written by Wellingtonian John Parker.
John’s having a public reading of the feature film treatment on…
Sunday 1st October, 4:00pm
@ Katipo Café, 76 Willis Street, Wellington
Duration: 1 hour (45 minutes for reading, 15 minutes feedback session)
Cost: free!
Featuring: Erin Banks and James Stewart, two of Wellington’s finest theatrical talent
…so feel free to head along and help shape what will hopefully be one of the next great pieces of Wellington film-making at its earliest stages.
Tiptoe Through the Tulips
Well… around them anyway, if you don’t want the gardeners getting medieval on you…
What:
Spring Festival, Sept 23 to Oct 8.
Where:
Botanic Gardens & Otari Wilton’s Bush
The Botanic Garden and Otari Wilton’s Bush will host two weeks of family orientated events.
Activities include:
- glow worm tours
- live music
- petting zoos
- plant sales
Brochures outlining the events will be available from both gardens and all Feeling Great stands from 1 September. PDF files here:
Spring Festival Brochure
Stamp Your Name on the Stump
Spring Festival Photo Contest
More reasons to moan about the buses…
The fares have gone up! Well, for some of us they have. The new zones do make things a little simpler, but one gets the feeling the 1, 2 and 3 stage price hikes will generally outweigh the discounts the more rare 4 stage traveller will be making. Don’t know about you train users. You can fend for yourself.
If you’re a little confused about it all MetLink have excellent online info about the new zones and fares.
And to the bus-driver who looked stroppy at me this morning when I presented my brand new (but old-school $20 three-stage ten trip), and griped that I should be using one of the new cards, and made his decision to let me on regardless seem as if was the greatest show of magnaminity shown by a single person across the Wellington region this year, might I now say (having checked the rules): “Get stuffed! It’s valid to the 17th!”
Waterfront update
Last night, I once again forced myself to sit through a Waterfront Development Subcommittee meeting. While it was full of enough procedural tedium and political pigheadedness to make sitting in broken glass during a Celine Dion concert seem like a pleasant alternative, it was worth it to get the latest updates and to see an inspiring presentation from UN Studio‘s Holger Hoffman (since Ben van Berkel had to miss it due to illness) about the processes behind their design for the transition building.
Here’s an update on progress and plans, mainly based upon reports from the meeting, but with a few other tidbits.
[read on…]
Celluloid architecture
These days it seem like there’s a specialist film festival for every taste and interest: human rights, vegetables, silent films and even Phoenix dactylifera. There’s even one for architecture buffs, and the Wellington season starts at the Penthouse this Friday.
[Read on…]