Working with the AAA can provide you with organisational and marketing experience, keep you well informed, strengthen a professional network and is a great way to offer a positive contribution to pursuit of great architecture in Auckland.

Send your C.V to info@aaa.org.nz

Whare Tane is an avant garde 1920s residence commissioned and occupied for prominent illustrator and principal cartoonist at the NZ Herald Trevor Lloyd for 32 years, notable for popularising the Kiwi as New Zealand’s national icon. Whare Tane has aesthetic significance for the austerity and strength of its exterior design, its setting on the slopes of Maungawhau and its mature garden of informal design. The three-storey house was constructed in 1925-6, designed by Scottish born Architect John Anderson and built by Archibald Frame (a stonemason). The style combines forward thinking architecture with expressions of influence of American Architect Frank Lloyd Wright with a strong awareness of New Zealand’s natural and cultural landscape.

From http://www.barfoot.co.nz/475742

Open Home

26&28 Clive Rd, Epsom
Sat 19 May 01:00 pm – 01:30 pm
Sun 20 May 01:00 pm – 01:30 pm

First Tour – Geyser building in Parnell – hosted by the Auckland Architecture Association, the architects Patterson Associates, and the contractor Mainzeal.  Geyser is New Zealand’s first 6 Green Star office building, using 27% of the energy of a typical office building of its size.

This is the first of 3 tours offering a rare peek at some of Auckland’s latest architecture, the first opportunity to view these buildings before construction ends.  Upcoming tours include St. Heliers Development, Cook Sargisson & Pirie and ASB Business Building, Wynyard Quarter, BVN Architecture & Jasmax.  Dates to be advised.

Register for Geyser – AAA Construction Site Tour

Few places remain – Members received invitation earlier this week (become a member).
Covered shoes are a requirement.
Tour begins on the corner of Bath and Garfield Streets, Parnell.

After filling out the registration form you will be directed to a credit card online payment system (PayPal) – your registration is not complete until you have paid.

First Flight – Geyser – 3.00 PM – June 2, 2012 – $35

Second Flight – Geyser – 3.30 PM - June 2, 2012 - $35

Students – Geyser – June 2, 2012 - $15

Architects: Warren and Mahoney
Completed: 2011
Location: Auckland Airport

If ever you make the mistake of reading the comment stream on the average Herald article about Auckland you will find this kind of thought from people like Rodney of Howick who states:

For some reason [Mayor] Len Brown seems convinced that there will be more businesses started in the CBD and more people wanting to live there. Sorry Len, but cities grow outward and not inward.

Well Rodney is wrong both in general about cities and in particular about Auckland over the last decade or so. Cities grow in all sorts of ways and recently Auckland has been growing inward and upward [a direction that Rodney seems to be ignorant of] and hasn’t it been fantastic. I recently covered the issue of inner city living in Auckland so in this post I want to illustrate some of the great changes that we have seen in Auckland’s public and commercial world in order to both contradict this kind of thinking and to celebrate these changes.

But I also want to make an additional claim about Rodney’s opinion. He’s right. Well, he was right. Auckland, like almost every other city in the western world grew outward in the second half of the last century away from its old centre. There was a consistent and unstoppable move away from inner-city areas for both habitation and commerce throughout this period. The very terms urban and inner-city came to freight negative connotations and lower value was given to the existing structures of the old city centres,

‘Clapham? Surely not! I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s terribly urban, so urban,’ with her feelings centred on the word urban. I wondered if I had mistaken the meaning of urban, if it now meant more than ‘of the city’.

-Janet Frame Angel At My Table p282 original emphasis.

Of course some cities suffered from this phase more than others. Auckland’s inner suburbs were bisected for motorways to feed these new suburbs and the city itself very nearly completely expired through flight and separation. This transformation was the result of public policy, especially as expressed in transport decisions, but that in turn did reflect the spirit of the times [although it was not universally supported- see Paul Mees Transport for Suburbia for good coverage of this]. The move to the suburbs was in, and the destruction of the old city was consistent with the brave new world of modernism which had an exhilarating commitment to the bold fresh start on a blank canvas. And why not, after the appalling wars that seemed to be the culmination of the old world order.

The most affected cities of this phase have become know as ‘doughnut cities’ because they now have a hole instead of a centre. Detroit is the poster child for this, but Christchurch is another good example. A weak centre ringed by low density suburbs with busy shopping malls sitting in a sea of carparking. The surviving examples of its Gothic Revival past made the old centre like a fairly lifeless full size museum. Of course it now has bigger problems and in fact the chance to fix this imbalance, but it is not clear that it will.

Auckland’s centre was largely saved by the failure of those that wanted the University to leave town for a poorly connected greenfields site at Tamaki. Unlike the Christchurch CBD which lost its University, it was largely the growth of the University along with AUT through the barren years of the 1980s that just kept the city going until the tide changed.

And a tide it is. We are now in a new phase with a complete new set of economic, social, environmental, and spatial imperatives. Which are in the process of transforming our lives in ways that are just as profound as the one that began with the Great Depression and wasn’t really in full flight until the 1950s. [See Richard Florida's The Great Reset for more on this]. Although these changes are not evenly spread nor always obvious in the midst of them happening.

Central to understanding the postwar revolution is the rise of the car and huge spatial changes that we made to accommodate it. Likewise it seems that we are currently in an age where the penetration of the auto-centric life has reached its limits and a new order with different patterns of movement are beginning to assert themselves. I am not claiming that we will suddenly abandon all driving but rather its centrality to our lives and the dominant role it has in shaping our communities and routines will diminish. This will take time and like the last big shift will require effort and investment in alternatives, and of course will be contested by those who benefit from the old way, or just identify with it.

An important driver of this change, and also a result of it, is the desire for a more livable and human-centred spatial order, and perhaps ironically, one better connected to its constituent parts, its suburbs. While the centre is crucial to this dynamic change [See Ed Glaeser's The Triumph of the City], it isn’t at the expense of the hinterland but rather it is a transformation and an intensification of everywhere. It should mean the triumph of the local, a rise in difference, as well as in interconnectedness. And a world where the word urban has reverted to its older connotations, more likely to imply sophistication and growth than decline and despair.

Except for our friend Rodney, or others like him whose views were formed last century and are stuck there. Or others living eslewhere in the country for whom Auckland is a distant or unwelcome thought. And this is the world view that the current government holds and is determined to force on us all. That they are clearly fighting against the new zeitgeist that is, like the last one, both global and probably irresistible is cause for optimism. But it also underlines how frustrating it is when we at last have a Council that speaks for the whole city and that ‘gets it’ only to have yesterdays world view being clung to by a dominating authority.

My photographs here are intended to show that the transformation of Auckland is well underway and not just a theory or the dream of some urban designers at the Council. But a real phenomenon being invested in by companies and public bodies and being successfully occupied by a full range of businesses, institutions, and individuals for all of our benefit.

These are the amenities and pleasures, business and work opportunities, that are the fruits of intensification and improved interconnection. This is the city we can have if we invest in new forms of movement and liberate the city from being so dominated by the demands of the car. Maybe even Rodney may come to town on occasion and see that ‘up and in’ is the 21st century way and for the simple reason that growth in these directions will help make us happier, healthier, and indeed wealthier.

New and old businesses co-existing in new ways: Making the city one big shared space

Article reposted from Auckland Transport Blog.  Original post, “The New Intensity“ by Patrick Reynolds, February 16th, 2012.

Antwerp Central Stat
Between past and present, between dream and reality, this film presents a mildly ironic and contemplative look at Antwerp’s Central Station …

Visual Acoustics; The Modernism of Julius Shulman
Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, Visual Acoustics celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. …

Mission Statements: The Architecture of Dutch Diplomacy
In 1991 the Netherlands Foreign Ministry decided to promote Dutch architecture abroad. All over the world prominent Dutch architects, including Rem Koolhaas, Bjarne Mastenbroek and Dick van Gamere, Lafour & Wijk and Claus and Kaan, designed new embassies.  …

Citizen Architect: Citizen Architect
Hale County, Alabama is home to some of the most impoverished people in America. It is also home to Auburn University’s Rural Studio, one of the country’s most prolific and inspirational design-build architecture programs. …

Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner
“The purpose of architecture,” said John Lautner, “is to create timeless, free, joyous spaces for all activities in life.” Infinite Space traces the lifelong quest of visionary genius John Lautner to create “architecture that has no beginning and no end.” …

Contemporary Days – The Designs of Lucienne & Robin Day
Robin and Lucienne Day transformed British design after World War II with striking furniture and textiles that signaled a new era of modernist sensibilities for everyday living. …

Philip Johnson: Diary of an Eccentric Architect
“My place in New Canaan is…a diary of an eccentric architect.” Thus begins a fascinating look into the mind of one of the 20th century’s most creative and significant architects.  …

Desert Utopia: Midcentury Architecture in Palm Springs
This documentary traces the origins and growth of midcentury architecture in the modernist mecca of Palm Springs, California. …

Unfinished Spaces
In Unfinished Spaces, Cuba’s ambitious National Art Schools project, designed by three young artists in the wake of Castro’s Revolution, is neglected, nearly forgotten, and ultimately rediscovered as a visionary architectural masterpiece. …

Journeyman Architect - The Life and Work of Donald Wexler
During the 1950s and 60s, Donald Wexler pioneered commercial and residential construction using steel. …

Modern Tide: Midcentury Architecture on Long Island
Using rare archival material and gorgeous cinematography, this film explores the work of the region’s best postwar architects, including Albert Frey, Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Durrell Stone, Marcel Breuer, Andrew Geller, Philip Johnson, Charles Gwathmey and Barbara and Julian Neski.  …

William Krisel, Architect
Over the course of his sixty-year career, architect William Krisel has brought modernism to the masses, designing more than 40,000 individual housing units across the U.S. …

Coast Modern
Filmmakers Michael Bernard and Gavin Froome take us on a journey from Los Angeles to Vancouver and from 1922 to the present exploring modernist architecture on the West Coast of North America …

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the transformation of the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development and the St. Louis residents who called it home. …

The Gruen Effect: Victor Gruen and the Shopping Mall
In The Gruen Effect, an architect’s life, work, and critical humor become a means to make sense of the cities we live in today.

Space, Land, Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm
Most recognized for the iconic Texas land-art piece, Cadillac Ranch, the 1970s art/architecture collective Ant Farm questioned the boundaries of architecture and everything else in the process. …

Rem Koolhaas – A Kind of Architect
Rem Koolhaas – A Kind of Architect is an engaging portrait of a visionary man, which takes us to the heart of his ideas. For Koolhaas what is essential is not to create individual masterpieces, but to provoke and excite through the wide range of his activities. …

Bauhaus: Model and Myth
Founded in Weimar in 1919, the Bauhaus school sought to reconcile the arts and crafts and create a new aesthetic that would serve industry. It became the twentieth century’s most important school of art, design and architecture. …

John Portman: A Life of Building
Once a maverick who was nearly exiled from the American Institute of Architects, John Portman is now recognized as one of the most innovative and imitated architects ever. …

Oscar Niemeyer
A documentary on the life and work of the greatest of modern Brazilian architects, Oscar Niemeyer. In a relaxed atmosphere, the architect tells how his main projects were conceived – among these Brasília, the French Communist Party headquarters and Mondadori Publishers in Milan …

NZIA National Award Winner, 1986.

Designed by multi award winning architect David Mitchell in 1984, this is a breathtaking light filled pavilion designed to showcase art & utopian aesthetics. Its floating stainless steel ceiling gently reflects the sunlight & whilst this is a grand statement spread over more than 470sqm, it has intimate spaces as well as spacious entertaining areas. The private, 1300sqm walled section is suitably landscaped; a soft leafy canvas that complements the clean lines of this postmodern masterpiece. With generous 5 car garaging, storage and off street parking are easily accommodated. There is a large self-contained 1 bedroom apartment contained in its own wing & beyond the main living area are the gymnasium, sauna, heated pool & spa. A special property commended by Metro magazine ‘for its ‘Liveability & Architectural merit’, this is a rare opportunity indeed.

http://www.barfoot.co.nz/471702

Today the Council voted to undertake an extensive review of the role of Ports of Auckland before deciding on whether to support further expansion into the harbor.  The decision was made in a Council meeting this morning. … (the council pulled) the brakes on further expansion of the Auckland port into the Waitemata Harbour but stopped short of putting a permanent end to the expansion.

Bernard Orsman, nzherald.co.nz.

It’s not over yet – however, the AAA and similar organizations consider this initial step a victory.  : ).

One of the key components of the Auckland Plan is a massive extension of the wharves operated by the Ports of Auckland, right in the heart of the city.

Campbell Live strongly believes the public are not informed enough about what is being proposed and there has been insufficient education, consultation and debate.

It is not too late for people to have their say but in order to do so people have to know what is being proposed.

This is what the Ports of Auckland, 100 percent owned by the Auckland City Council, would like to do.

Campbell Live

If you can’t see the video above, try refreshing your browser.

The table discusses a number of significant issues that the draft Auckland Plans is challenged to address, from an architectural and council planning standpoint.  The AAA have reposted these videos here, of the full discussion, to direct to our members and interested people to this significant discussion.  Essential Viewing.  (videos originally posted on architecturenow.co.nz)