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Suiting up

Suiting up

Projects | Architecture doesn’t arrive all at once. There’s a lot to unpack and hang, ribbons to cut, names to gift. Such welcoming celebrations are important for community, yet it is worth reflecting that we ra...
Revisiting the Aaltos

Revisiting the Aaltos

Practice | 1982: As a young architect, I had wrestled my way from Turkey to Finland, at the soggy end of a hitchhiker’s version of the Grand Tour, involving low-budget lodgings, sleeping on beaches, thumbing lif...
Opinion: Beatific urban farmers

Opinion: Beatific urban farmers

Practice | I revisited the building a few weeks back. It was recently reopened after a refit that apparently addressed various code and maintenance issues and, though my memory of that stormy night was a bit hazy,...
Festival of Architecture: AKL report

Festival of Architecture: AKL report

Review | Previously known as Architecture Week and largely run by the Auckland branch of the NZIA, the first Festival of Architecture sought to expand the remit, both temporally and geographically, with an exp...
Framing the central city: again

Framing the central city: again

Review | I doubt a design drawing a wide green band to confine central city construction was as hot a topic in 1850 as it is in 2012. Both the 1850 ‘Town Reserve’ and the 2012 (Christchurch Recovery Plan) Blue...
Anti-social distancing

Anti-social distancing

Practice | The Auckland Unitary Plan (AUP) that came into force in November 2016 revised the rules for housing design across the city’s region, introducing new paradigms, and unifying regional policies for the d...
Kinetic architecture

Kinetic architecture

People | Through the years, I have revisited the questions in different forms with only mild response. It was not until I decided to apply this idea to building tectonics on the building envelope did I start to ...
On the rise

On the rise

People | ArchitectureNow: Were you drawn to architecture from a young age? / Raphaela Rose: Growing up with an academic mother who taught town planning at the university, as one of three sisters we were alwa...
Managing mental health

Managing mental health

Practice | Closer to home, we revisited Parlour’s Guides for Equitable Practice, which reminded us that there are common mental health issues associated with long working hours which include depression, anxiety an...
Ohakea: five star facility

Ohakea: five star facility

Projects | During the early stage of the works the mechanical services design was revisited and changes to the heating system have pushed out the completion date. A decision to replace steam with gas brought more ...
Designer Profile: Penny Vernon

Designer Profile: Penny Vernon

People | Urbis: When and how did you get involved in interior design? / Penny Vernon: I think all my life I’ve been drawing pictures. I was the second eldest of six children on a small farm in Raglan, near Ham...
Pattersons

Pattersons

Practice | Left to weather and age gracefully, it is the antithesis of black-stained timber that must be revisited every two years in a battle against the elements. The use of materials that weather and patina nat...
Wall to Wall

Wall to Wall

People | Firstly, I want to ask you about the Venice Biennale; it must have been very exciting to be involved and to show your exhibit in the historic Corderie of the Arsenale. Were you pleased with the end ...