Book launch: From prefab precursors to an ab fab future
Aalto Books’ John Balasoglou, Pamela Bell –CEO PreFab New Zealand and Mark Southcombe –architect and senior lecturer in architecture at Victoria University.
Stephen Olsen heads along to the launch of a timely new book about prefabricated building: 'Kiwi Prefab: Cottage to Cutting Edge'
If you’re wondering what new book is going to be the “go-to book for New Zealand architecture in the next few decades”, Victoria University architecture professor Diane Brand has the answer: Kiwi Prefab, Cottage to Cutting Edge.
Speaking at the launch of the book collaboration by Pamela Bell and Mark Southcombe, Brand predicted it will make a “major contribution to discourse in architecture, especially at a time of rebuilding one of our major cities and the need for fast turnaround”.
Publisher John Balasoglou chipped in with a prediction that it might top the best selling ‘Deeper Shades of Green’.
“This is not another picture book of the kind we’re used to, it’s much more important than that,” he added.
As noted by Pamela Bell, whose prefab passion has already given rise to PrefabNZ, the timeliness of the book in conjunction with the affordable housing debate should not pass unnoticed. As Bell says “this is a debate that should be raging more publicly”. Take note, Kiwibuild!
But wait, there’s more. In tandem with the book launch New Plymouth’s Puke Ariki museum gallery is hosting a nirvana-like showing of the wonders of prefab, curated by convert Gerard Beckingsale, and running from this month to the close of March.
In the type of integrated assembly that befits prefab, Beckingsale’s chapter about the exhibition sits with four cameo essays by Barry Bergdoll, Peggy Deamer, Brenda Vale and the pioneering Roger Hay.
Last night’s launch in Wellington featured an over-long but engrossing, image-filled presentation that may have left no prefab precursors unturned; be it the Wichita house by R. Buckminister Fuller, or the revelatory and largely lost story of New Zealand’s own IBS – Industrialised Building Systems, or fast forwarding to the future, the HIVE Innovation Village in Christchurch.
The world of “fab prefabs” that bust misperceptions but don’t bust the bank enters the light with this compact and friendly book. Nor will this be the last word, with a conference to follow in March 2013.
‘Kiwi Prefab: from Cottage to Cutting Edge’ is available form Aalto Books.
