The Organon Architecture Blog

Organon Architecture’s 2011 Top 10

2012-01-11T12:30:00.001+13:00

Yes, I know it’s 2012 already. But 2011 ended so busy for me I didn’t have a chance to do my semi-regular Top 10—i.e., in the spirit of Epic Beer’s own Top 10, listing the top ten things we achieved at Organon Architecture did in 2011:

1. New offices!
2011 started badly for me, for reasons many of you know. But productivity picked up in July when I opened my new office on Dominion Road—about halfway down, as it happens. Safely sequestered therein, we produced a mountain of work, and lots to celebrate.
And being about 400m from Eden Park, it wasn’t a bad location from which to enjoy the World Cup!

2. ‘Art & Architecture Afternoons’
The new offices, corner of Valley and Dominion Rd, now play host to informal Friday afternoon ‘Art & Architecture Afternoons’ from 4pm every Friday. The “art” part is supplied chiefly by local artists Jasmine Kamante and Jesper Sundwall, whose studio is fortuitously just up the road, and between us we have a few plans for presentations in 2012—starting on the 20th. Feel free to drop in and chat.

3. Orders!
Order books are still full, with some exciting new work and renovations going on—and not every architecture practice can say that this year!

4. Bungalows!
In the words of Paul Litterick, “Man is born free, yet everywhere is in villas.” And this year again, no one’s asked me to renovate a villa—folk are getting more excited instead by California Bungalows. Good news, and a very healthy trend indeed. That said, there was one reluctant sale by a client of a very special California Bungalow (right)—news made better by the sale price which more than covered our fairly extensive renovations.

5. Kebyar
I’m still really enjoying my Kebyar membership, which keeps me in touch with like-minded architects overseas (since there’s few enough of them locally).

6. Home Show
Thanks to my sister, a landscape architect, I was persuaded to share a stand at the Whangarei Home Show—the first time I’ve tried that method of promoting the practice. It was fun, and from it came two delightful clients and the prospect of a few very interesting things emerging…

7. Topping out
I was delighted that a project first begun back in 2003 (right) is finally seeing the light of day, with topping out on the top storey all but complete in the last days of 2011. It’s all set now for completion in 2012.

8. New website
Yes, I know, I’ve been promising this for years—pretty much since the year I first cobbled it together--but this year it’s not just long, long, loong overdue (one client suggested if I don’t update it I should just unplug it) but will actually emerge.
Or so I’m promised.

9. New logo
With the move to new offices, I was persuaded by hotshot graphic designer Graham Clark from Clark Design & Marketing that I should change my logo. Quite frankly, I think what we came up with is pretty damn striking.
You can see it at the top of the page.

If you like it, give Graham a call and he’ll do something just as sharp for you.
Tell him I sent you.

10. Good Work
Not that I’m one to boast, but I think 2011 finished with good variety and some pretty good work in the bag—both renovations and new work. Here’s a small selection.

So it didn’t start too well, but in the end not a bad year at all, really.

I look forward to topping it this year.

Hope you had a good year too. Keep enjoying the good life--and don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Cheers
Peter Cresswell

Organon Architecture’s 2011 Top 10

2012-01-11T12:30:00.000+13:00

3. Orders!
Order books are still full, with some exciting new work and renovations going on—and not every architecture practice can say that this year!

5. Kebyar
I’m still really enjoying my Kebyar membership, which keeps me in touch with like-minded architects overseas (since there’s few enough of them locally).

If you like it, give Graham a call and he’ll do something just as sharp for you.
Tell him I sent you.

10. Good Work
Not that I’m one to boast, but I think 2011 finished with good variety and some pretty good work in the bag—both renovations and new work. Here’s a small selection.

So it didn’t start too well, but in the end not a bad year at all, really.

I look forward to topping it this year.

Hope you had a good year too. Keep enjoying the good life--and don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Cheers
Peter Cresswell

[Cross-posted at my Organon Architecture blog]

Los Hongos House, by Rolando Barahona Sotela

2011-11-25T10:26:00.001+13:00

Who says concrete has to be boring?

Not Frank Lloyd Wright, who called it the material ideally suited “to bear the imprint of human imagination.”

And not architect Rolando Barahona Sotela who designed this 1983 Costa Rica house.

The house is dominated by two solid concrete structures which are designed to generate shadows and wind—both highly desirable in Costa Rica’s climate—collect water, and organise the house.

Says the architect, “It is a comfortable indoor- outdoor home, indoors it has 4 private suite bedrooms with private terrace and bath, indoor living dining area, studio, jacuzzi area, bar, kitchen breakfast area and multiple decks and terraces under the concrete umbrellas surrounded by jungle. 5 river water pools with sun decks and reservoirs- a side river and a lake! Do you need more?”

[Hat tip Ryan Thewes’ Organic Architecture blog]

Temporary accommodation

2011-03-02T13:53:00.001+13:00

Some of the best minds in New Zealand are now turning their minds to how to accommodate several thousand homeless Cantabrians.

The first thought, of course, is to throw up temporary accommodation around Christchurch as fast as possible.

But as we know, “temporary” has a strange way of becoming permanent (such as the post-war prefabs build in South England to house the post-war homeless, some of which are still being enjoyed now as the equivalent of NZ’s beach baches), so the better minds are already realising that it is no point simply building in haste today the slums of tomorrow.

Better instead that whatever is put up swiftly today be future-proofed to be part of something better tomorrow.

Future-proofing this temporary accommodation means more than just thinking about making provision now for the new cabling and computer-driven systems that boffins will be inventing over coming decades.

It means thinking now about things like

the durability of materials and componentry (so what is built will last);
making these temporary units easily expandable into something greater (and building in now the capacity and flexibility to make this happen);
how the accommodation units are laid out (layouts that support the building of communities, with space between them for units to expand);
incentive schemes to encourage occupants of these units to eventually become owners;
making the units as simple to build as possible (which requires quite a bit of ingenuity in design) so that almost anyone can build and expand them (the more people capable of assembling them the more labour will be available to contribute to their rapid construction);
using as many “off-the-shelf” systems and components as possible to avoid delays in developing new prototypes;
and about designing the units as attractively as possible so that the good folk living in them will want to buy theirs.

The more future-proofed these units can be, the more permanent these “temporary” units can be made—which means the more “capital” in the form of air conditioning and security systems and the like can be installed; and the more infrastructure around them can be built—in the full knowledge that this investment of resources won’t be wasted down the track.

Do it right, and it will be like building Levittown all over again (for which builder Bill Levitt earned that Time cover).

Or better.

Or at least as ingenious.

With that in mind, here’s just a few opening thoughts on the matter.

Designing in staged improvements

However these units are built, the more flexible their planning the better for the future. Consider as an example of the sort of flexibility these simple cabins, which have been designed so that, come the time, something much grander may be made of them. (Coincidentally, the pictures come from an old remaindered book I bought second-hand from the Canterbury Public Library some years ago.)

Now clearly I’m not suggesting just building a kitchen as the first stage of any temporary accommodation—what I’m suggesting here is a concept of how these buildings could be staged, with future modules easily added as and when needed.

Thinking about structural systems

One of the major question to be asked about these units is “where are they going to be built.” If you want to build around fifty to one-hundred units a weeks safely and economically, you’re really talking about building in factory conditions and then trucking either panels, house sections or whole houses out to sites to assemble and place on foundations.

Some years ago I worked at a yard in Perth doing just that for a house builder called Durabilt. The houses were built in the yard on lightweight pre-stressed concrete “bridge” sections that were supremely stiff, able to support long spans, and exactly the size of a truck deck.

A simple house might consist of two, three or more of these “decks,” on which the structure was framed up using lightweight steel stud framing with all joints spot welded together—which made it both light and very, very stiff.

A two-module house could be assembled in the yard by two carpenters in around 2.5 to 3 days, with all materials being delivered to them by forklift, and all other trades programmed in. The individual truck sections were then trucked to site and set upon six large concrete rings into which the foundations were poured, and all services connected.

Hey presto, four days after the concrete deck was deposited in front of two carpenters in the yard, it was all ready to move into somewhere in the Western Australian desert. Very quick, very simple, very inexpensive, very ingenious.

Here’s a few of my old photos to give you an idea of the system:

A new one-module unit ready to go, with two new lightweight concrete “truck deck” bases in the foreground set up ready to build a two-module house.

A look under the lightweight precast pre-stressed concrete transportable deck on which the new house is built, and which becomes its floor.
The brown strips are tape to help release the precast concrete unit from its form.
The ribs contain the prestressed wires that give the unit its stiffness and help reduce its weight.
Already existing systems like the Firth RibRaft system could easily be adapted to make these.
Note the limited number of supports needed (just six per “deck”) which means that foundations on site can be kept to a minimum.

Lightweight steel stud framing fixed and spot-welded together on two lightweight concrete decks.

Cladding going up.

A house pack of prefabricated steel door frames, made up to the required sizes, delivered from the yard’s central store and ready for almost instant installation.

Door frames installed on the opening between the two modules—note the two walls, one on the perimeter of each concrete deck.

A single module unit packed and loaded up ready to be transported off to its new location. The common wall between the new units is tarped up, and the onsite services and fittings needed onsite are being loaded up on the “goose neck.” (Foundation rings are still to be loaded).

As you can see from these pictures, designing the simple houses around the lightweight concrete sections, using the module of a truck deck as the starting point, a very efficient construction system is possible.

Infrastructure

One issue bound to cause problems with any temporary accommodation is what to do about infrastructure, which will be the place where real “traffic jams” are almost bound to occur.

Talking about real traffic jams writer Andrew Galambos talks about them as being a collision between capitalism and socialism, where capitalism can produce cars quicker than socialism can produce roads.

A similar problem might emerge with the provision of temporary accommodation, with capitalism able to produce and erect fare more housing units than the council can provide and repair the infrastructure to which they might need to be connected (given, especially, that it seems no part of the damaged infrastructure was insured, meaning all repairs and new construction must be paid out of existing capital) .

Fortunately, solutions exist.

Stringing new electricity cables is probably the simplest job to be overcome, and could be turned into a real aesthetic bonus by offering up the design of new poles and pylons (of which literally hundreds will be covering the landscape) to design competitions. The poles and pylons themselves can help symbolise recovery.

Getting new water mains to new sites is a little more difficult, but provision for this can be made in the reconstruction of exiting roads, and on-site use of rainwater and grey water should be considered to minimise water demand.

The greatest problem of infrastructure is how to get rid of waste water and storm water. Fortunately, solutions exist for this too. Instead of tapping into an already damaged centralised storm/wastewater system, with all the long delays associated with this, consideration could be given instead to onsite or decentralised disposal of waste and storm water (sometimes called “sustainable” disposal):

Doing this turns a problem into a solution.

Onsite wastewater disposal systems are now legion, both for individual houses and for small “hamlets” of houses. These include sand filtration systems, evapo-transpiration systems, aerobic soakage beds, compensated dripper-line systems, wetland flow systems, and are very, very good—producing some delightful landscapes with the wastes themselves often used as compost and fertiliser.

(And their use would help encourage environmentalists who might otherwise object to these building developments to instead get in behind them, and to contribute their expertise.)

By installing evapotranspiration trenches as a means of wastewater disposal, for example, the wastewater from a house can be used to establish vegetation around a house, around a park, or across a field of edible plants like alfalfa. And evapotranspiration trenches can be integrated with water harvesting swales and basins into designs to produce interesting landcape designs in a flat landscape, and to maximise food production, shade, shelter and dust mitigation. (See here for example for their use in remote Australian communities.)

It’s true that the Christchurch geology and landscape is not ideally suited to all these systems, but the expertise exists in New Zealand to select and design systems that would---and the land exists around the fringes of Christchurch to grow the crops produced.

Conclusion

There’s an awful lot more to be said, and these are just a very few initial thoughts about the lines down which thinking might go in providing temporary accommodation around Christchurch. And I haven’t even begun talking yet about the actual architectural design of the units themselves.

But that’s a post for another day.

Pakuranga Renovation – Organon Architecture

2010-11-10T16:00:00.001+13:00

Here’s an interesting project I’ve been working on recently—renovation designs for an existing house in Pakuranga. In essence, it involves the surgical insertion of a new steel and concrete upper floor over an existing one-storey, flat-roofed house (above), to add extra accommodation, and give a new double-height lounge (below).

It’s been fun to work on. And should be great to live in.

(Cross-posted at the Organon Architecture Blog)

Architectural Mini-Tutorial: The Sociable Kitchen

2010-09-16T00:51:00.001+12:00

Kitchens aren’t what they used to be—not that you’d know it from the antiseptic offerings in the trendy magazines and most of the kitchen showrooms.

Kitchen are the place wherein the products of fire, light, earth and water are combined to become food; a place of experiment and sustenance. In the modern house, the kitchen links family room, lounge dining room, breakfast space, BBQ area and more—and should open up to morning sun for breakfast, afternoon sun on the deck for barbecues, and mid-morning sun for coffee. Yet in this most important space, where more money is spent per square metre than anywhere else in a house, “the kitchen industry - and kitchen designers - have to own up. The kitchens most people end up with look depressingly similar.” And dull. And unable to really do what a kitchen should: support the essence of the kitchen

So let me tell you about a different kind of kitchen than you normally see: "The Sociable Kitchen." Not the place that Jona Lewie would always find himself in at parties, but somewhere in which you might be inspired to kick a party off.

Designer Johnny Grey talks about The Hardworking House, and he reckons in any house it’s the kitchen that’s the hardest-working room--especially with what he calls "The Sociable Kitchen."

The Sociable Kitchen is a place like a combination of Great Hall and the Great Kitchens of yor, but much better equipped and more fun to be in. Not so much just a kitchen that you need to hide, as a living room in which you can cook, i.e., "open plan living environments that unite social, practical functions and the outdoors in one multi-functional hub."

My belief [ says Grey] is that the kitchen is effectively a sociable space, its origins lie in the hearth; cooking and eating are largely group or family activities; when done alone they become purely functional and provide a somewhat incomplete experience that is better for being shared."

The Sociable Kitchens Grey has pioneered are places that are pleasant in which to cook, to hang out, and to pass through—even (you might say especially) in relatively narrow or constrained spaces.

Here, by way of example, are three designs by his students for a Sociable Kitchen at the Obama White House.

Here’s another for a narrow three-metre space.

Part of his method is that, rather than making "straight-line" kitchens that everyone will recognise as “the kitchen!”, he uses instead specialised pieces of furniture--often with curved or "soft" edges--each carefully located to perform a major kitchen function (e.g., storage, prep, serving, appliances) and linked to the scale of the space. In a carefully designed kitchen (such as his own, in a remodelled garage), this might mean the preparation area might represent no more than 40 percent of the floor space--"the remainder being devoted to a comfortable and sociable lounging area... and integrated dining area, and a play space for our four children. This," he says, "is typical of [our] recent divisions of kitchen space."

The concept involves something he sometimes calls “the unfitted kitchen,” especially suitable for spaces like the one shown here through which people will be moving to other related parts of the house. Unfitted, today, means unrecognisable as a kitchen, allowing the sociability of the space to come to the fore. In Grey's designs these “unfitted kitchens” often involve a lot of curved elements (rather than straight) to reduce the visual presence of the units, and the presence of different units at different heights, from 700 right up to 950 (rather than continuous benchtops all at the same height) to help break up the normally monolithic kitchen furniture and invite people in.

By "people" he means guests as well as family.

Using the popular Tripp Trapp chairs for children, for example, is one way to invite children in.

And there are others.

The main thing is to embrace people rather than exclude them, something today’s traditional straight-line fitted kitchens do poorly.

In a sociable kitchen you want lots of places to perch, and more work areas facing people than facing walls. In the traditional galley or U-shaped kitchens, however, this can be difficult, if not impossible.

Because as well as all the links to spaces beyond, the kitchen also needs to accommodate both the ideal work-flow of a main "inner" kitchen (i.e, storage -> prep -> sink -> cooker -> serving -> eating -> dirty dishes -> dishwashing -> crockery/cutlery storage) and the needs of the "outer" kitchen (e.g., snacks, sandwhiches, tea, coffee, cocktails) without either impinging on the other.

With Grey’s concept of the unfitted kitchen, the specialised pieces needed to do that can placed just right, needling less space and giving more delight than the normal "straight-line" kitchen layout.

As he says himself, "the science of marketing has taken over to a large extent when it comes to the design of our kitchens today," especially when it comes to the idea that size and straight-line continuous bench tops--made of the finest Italian marble--are the answer in today's kitchen.

But it doesn't have to be that way, says Gray at his blog.

During the 1980s [and beyond], kitchens were created where you could not have conversations because the work surfaces faced the walls, showroom spaced, clad in plastic with shiny surfaces and matching doors. Domesticity was too old fashioned or simply too difficult to mass produce…
    The focus [in designing kitchens] should be on creating spaces for living, eating, prepping and cooking. Instinct tells us everything we need to know. We want to be in a room because it feels like home.
    A kitchen has simple needs: modest-sized, freestanding furniture pieces for each major function (like cooking, prepping and washing up), minimal countertops, a walk-in larder and a storage cupboard or two, a decent table, access to the outdoors and panoramic eye contact. And don’t forget about a place to make a mess, have a drink, chill out, experiment, and generally behave like you live there.
    So throw out your matching units, continuous counters and matching doors with repetitive handles. You have nothing to loose but convention, and everything to gain. More space, less cost, more of you in the surroundings and less of being self consciously stylish, more playing with colour and use of vintage pieces. Enjoy discovering your inner interior designer.

And re-discovering even a tightly-constrained kitchen as a place to enjoy, rather than endure.

Proposal for a family home in Howick

2010-08-11T12:24:00.001+12:00

This is a proposal to renovate an existing three-bedroom house in the older part of Howick, with elevated views towards Beachlands, Rangitoto and Waiheke.

It’s designed as a “three-zoned house,” with parents’ realm upstairs and downstairs at the end with the view, children's realm at the afternoon/garden end of the house, and the shared realm in between.

The new spaces proposed for the house push the existing house out to views, to decks, to light and sun and gardens. The aim is an easy, informal, three-level family home within which the occupants may find adventure and delight—a house that is an extension of themselves -- connecting them to each other, to their grounds, and to the world beyond.

Megson House, 40 Fern Glen Rd North, St Heliers – Claude Megson

2010-06-03T11:39:00.000+12:00

There was only one lecturer at either of the architecture schools I went to who was worth a damn. Sadly, he died in 1994 while I was away in London concocting a cunning plan to come back to Auckland and devise some way to work with him. This was his house, which has just come on the market:

From the Auckland Architecture Archive’s 'Megson in Auckland' guide:

Megson created this house [at 40 Fern Glen Rd] for himself and his wife Cherie by partially demolishing and building over a modernist brick house by architect Professor Richard Toy (right), a senior colleague of Megson’s at the School of Architecture. (Remarkably, the Megson’s had lived in Toy’s house for 15 years before commencing work). The site – a corner section located on the brow of a steep rise - is vertiginous, and Megson’s extensions further emphasized the vertical. Toy’s house became a brick base over which a new timber superstructure was placed. Fixed to the downhill façade, a series of balconies – cages of mesh and red-painted steel tube - project the spaces of the house out into the treetops.”

A two-zoned house* with the kitchen acting as the “hinge” between the zones—a kitchen opening up to terraces and the sky, since Megson’s death in 1994, it has been bought and sold and renovated “utilising [says the estate agent now trying to sell it] the skill of a London-based architect and former student of Megson to ensure a reverential transformation.” For reverential, read “sterile.”
Nonetheless, you can head to the agent’s site to see more pictures showing the house as it is now.

Writing about Claude's house a few years ago, fellow-lecturer at Auckland’s Architecture School John Dickson said of it,

It is impossible without the process of Megson's imagination to connect the cluster of small, confined rooms of the house as it was (right) to the expansive, multi-levelled, vertical-fissured, spatial-phantasm that it has become."

And English architectural critic Professor Geoffrey Broadbent, writing after a 1992 tour of Claude's Auckland houses had this to say:

This," I said to myself, "is work of a very high international standard indeed." ...One is constantly struck by the surprise around the corner, the bright shaft of light penetrating from above into the softer glow of the main living spaces -- especially in Megson' own house – that give his work such very special qualities...
“There is an essential "rightness" about Megson's spaces, for pleasant occupation by ordinary, normal human beings. Such things, says Dickson, have gone out of fashion with today's students. Well, so much the worse for the students [and their clients!].
“Perhaps it hasn't occurred to them that if they design real spaces for human
comfort and pleasure, then even those anguished souls overwhelmed by post-Heideggerian problematics’ about the nature of their existence might, given spaces like Megson's to contemplate that nature of their ‘Being,’ come to more positive conclusions! Because that's the point about Megson's spaces; they are life-enhancing.”

Broadbent, for once, is exactly right; even if “the softer glow of the main living spaces” has now been transformed into something more stark, as below, you might still get a sense of what he meant.

Cross-posted at the Claude Megson Blog.

*Two-zoned house: A family home giving room and space to both parents and teenage children, with separate "parent's realm" and another realm -- either for children or for guests—which meet around kitchen and family areas.

1 architect, one 32sqm apartment, 24 different layouts!

2010-05-04T11:51:00.001+12:00

The layouts include kitchen, library, laundry room, dressing room, a lounge with a hammock, a home theatre with big screen, an enclosed dining area, a bathroom (with tub) and a wet bar.

Each arrangement is made possibly by a perimeter containing a wealth of cunningly designed and easily transformed pieces of multi-use furniture, and a series of ‘moving walls’ slung from ceiling tracks, each with its own cunningly designed accoutrements, that slide across to redefine and remodel the space.

It’s astonishingly ingenious.

Head here to see plans and diagrams. and here to see architect Gary Chang’s presentation of his ‘tiny-yet-large’ Hong Kong apartment at a Tokyo Pecha Kucha event last year.

[PS: Thanks, Sandrine, for the heads up.]

‘Wrightscapes’

2010-04-12T17:57:00.001+12:00

Frank Lloyd Wright maintained that the fundamental intention of good architecture, specifically of his “organic architecture,” was to make human life more natural and nature more humane. Clearly, that must begin with how your architecture is related to its surroundings, and vice versa.

To put it simply, the integration of site and architecture is paramount—and no-one has done that more successfully than Fran Lloyd Wright.

Charles & Berdeana Aguar’s exceptional book ‘Wrightscapes: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Landscape Designs’ looks at the spaces outside Wright’s magnificent houses, looking at the relationship between man-made and natural—between site and house. Because in every good design, neither can be understood without the other.

The Aguar’s offer this potent summary of the principles they identify as being identified with Wright’s landscapes—and I say “potent” because they identify principles worth applying to every house that attempts that goal, not just a Wright-designed one:

“Wrightscapes” Defined

The eventual success of a cultivated environment is not merely the result of plants or structures upon the landscape, but rather the sum of both the tangible and intangible—that is, the unification of the substantive elements upon the site with the personalities and experiences of those who visit or reside in the total environment that has been created.
Thus, this environment ultimately becomes both a literal and a sensual experience of the pervading essence—or spirit—of the place. The amalgamation of criteria that creates this spirit-of-place should be, to a greater or lesser degree, inherent in each property…

The residence was designed to meet the needs of a specific client and site, or was designed as a [speculative] home, and Wright or his representative personally provide input as to siting.

The residence was orientated to take advantage of natural factors inherent to the site: optimum solar exposure, prevailing winds, views, natural terrain, existing trees, and other vegetation.

The architecture and landscape treatment are responsive to and “at one” with the site—that is, there is a perceived (if not actual) interrelationship with the Nature of the site.

The natural landscape has been preserved, or the structure and plantings present a total composition that follows the fundamental design elements of unity, harmony, scale, simplicity, colour, form and texture.

The hardscape—outdoor furniture and construction, such as walls, paving material, water features, paths, parking areas—is in harmony with and suitable for the architecture.

The softscape—plant material—is appropriate to the site and has been retained in a natural form…

Extensions of architecture into the Nature of the site—balconies, verandahs, open porches, and outdoor rooms—have been retained to respect , or adapted to complement, Wright’s original design intent with respect to indoor-outdoor relationships.

The passage of entry from property line to front door provides an experience in itself—and entry experience—with exposure to unifying and/or contrasting textures of both built and natural materials.

There is a “sensed” experience of the total environment—a sense of place—that transcends bui8lding and plant materials, no only in what is seen, but in what is perceived: the feel of textures underfoot and of intermittent coolness and warmth to the skin; moving out from the shade and into the sun; the smell of flowers, grass, fruit, or any scents vivified by rain or air; the sounds of crunching gravel, singing and chirping birds, or splashing water; and other sensory qualities.

In other words, everything that can be done to put the occupants of the architecture into possession of their earth, and to remind them why life on this earth is worth living.

The pictures, by the way, are of the landscape around Wright’s own home in Wisconsin, Taliesin East.

Organon Architecture’s 2009 Top 10

2009-12-24T17:29:00.000+13:00

In the spirit of Luke Nicholas’s Epic Beer 2009 Top 10, listing the top ten things he and his fine brewery achieved in 2009, I figured I’d do something similar for my own day job, Organon Architecture:

The Waikato Times chose to publish my Van Oostrom house, calling it “an outstanding Hamilton home, surely the best [we] have featured.” Naturally, I agree. ;^)
.
After constant prodding by those who know their stuff, Organon Architecture’s new website is finally on the way to replace this old one which now has cobwebs on it.
And I’ve finally started an Organon Architecture blog (this one right here that you’re reading!) to better feature my projects.
If only I can find the timer between projects to start filling up all those pages as instructed. (Sorry, Paul!)
.
Still really enjoying my Kebyar membership, which keeps me in touch with like-minded architects overseas (since there’s few enough of them here locally).
.
Order books are still full, with some exciting new work and renovations going on—and not every architecture practice can say that this year!
.
My Design Consulations have been taking off.
It’s proved to be a great no-obligation way to talk about architecture with new clients, potential new clients, and good people who just want good architectural advice.
.
In the words of Paul Litterick, “Man is born free, yet everywhere is in villas.” And this year no one’s asked me to renovate a villa—folk are getting more excited instead by California Bungalows.
A very healthy trend indeed.
(I’ve always thought life wouldn’t be so bad if it was just spent renovating Auckland’s splendid stock of California Bungalows.) And no one—no one at all—is asking for “Tuscan” anymore. Thank Galt.
.
Spent some great times house-sitting, enjoying hospitality in and showing new clients around a few of “my” houses. I always enjoy seeing how the houses are enjoyed and experienced by those they’re designed for—and those I’ll be designing for.
.
I began posting Architectural Mini-Tutorials over at NOT PC, which I’ve discovered is a great way to communicate important architectural ideas—and was flattered to have artist Michael Newberry recommend them. (Note to self: Must do more.)
.
I was also flattered to be contacted by a photographer who photographs a lot of houses “to commend you on a superb job” on my house at 43A View Rd.
Nice to get that sort of praise from another professional, I thought.
.
I was delighted to be offered the chance to fix up a house I’d designed a few years back on which a client made a few too many shortcuts. And happily, it all worked out all round in the end.
And delighted too to be asked by a chap who’s owned Claude Megson houses to help renovate his present residence.
.

Hope you had a good year too, and you can have a
great break.

Keep enjoying the good life--and don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Cheers
Peter Cresswell

Labels: Architecture, Organon Architecture

Now THIS is what I call a holiday house ...

2009-12-09T17:58:00.000+13:00

Someone emailed me in support of John Key's bach. Well, of what John Key and a journalist claim is a bach.

They reckon it's a beaut bach, just as John Boy obviously does.

Well, I don't. I know what baches should look like.

Here's one here. Yes, I've posted it here before, but here's my own favourite unbuilt bach. Relaxed. Casual. Open. Expansive. And yes, it's one I designed
myself. Let's call it Holiday House 1. (Click on pics to enlarge.)

UPDATE: The pictures above show the house in mid-summer, in mid- to late-afternoon, when shade is your friend and the large eaves do their work.

Here's a picture of the house at the same time of day in mid-winter, showing the penetration of the sun at the time when it's most wanted:

Labels: Architecture

Van Oostrom House – Organon Architecture

2009-11-14T17:51:00.000+13:00

I couldn’t be happier with how this house has turned out – and from their enthusiasm I sense my clients would say the same.

I posted it here a few years back (here and here), but now the plants have matured – and since it’s been featured in the Waikato Times this month, I figured it was about time I showed it here in all its glory.

Who would have thought this could be found just five minutes from the centre of Hamilton.

The Waikato Times called it “an outstanding Hamilton home, surely one that is among the finest ‘House ‘n’ Lifestyle’ has featured.” Naturally, I agree with them . . . but I bet they say that about every house. ;^)

The house offers a private front to the street, and opens out from within to four landscaped ‘courtyards’ created to integrate site and house.

I won’t say too much here, since you can read about it in the ‘House n’ Lifestyle’ feature linked below – but seeing a house completed to this standard and the clients enjoying it as they are is the reason I do this job: to bring their dreams into reality by doing what they would do if they were a good architect.

[Photos by AvO]

Floor Plan
Elevations
Feature in Waikato Times ‘House n’ Lifestyle’ section [6MB to download]
More photos, courtesy AvO.
Visit my (imminently updated) Organon Architecture website.
Book a Design Consultation with me [PDF] so you can get started on building your own dream to come home to.

Labels: Architecture, Organon Architecture

Project: Dargaville extension – Organon Architecture

2009-11-04T16:20:00.001+13:00

Here’s a simple wee project I’ve been working on to extend a small existing house with a family area opening up to a protected outside courtyard, and to add on a sleep-out/studio with an open outside-eating spot between to enjoy cooling summer breezes.

Raglan proposal

2009-10-26T18:47:00.000+13:00

Sketch proposal for a steeply sloping Raglan site overlooking the inner harbour, on a site with fierce restrictive covenants--and which itself is heavily overlooked.

Architectural Mini-Tutorial: The New Zealand House

2009-10-23T17:37:00.000+13:00

Every place, every region, has a house form that’s unique to that place – unique because of history, because of climate, because of landscape or way of life.

Given what we have here in New Zealand, and our relaxed way of life, here’s how the New Zealand house appears to me, in oomparison to some of the house types of other times and other places . . .

Labels: Architectural Mini-Tutorial, Architecture, New Zealand

Architectural Mini-Tutorial: Ceiling Decks

2009-10-21T17:39:00.000+13:00

Open plan living is a vast improvement on life in a box -- or in a series of boxes, which is what describes most traditional houses, unfortunately.

But it’s not enough just to be “open plan.” The biggest open plan space is just a field, right? Good open-plan living still requires a delineation of spaces within the larger space – it’s just more difficult for the designer to ensure the right degree of separation between the sub-spaces, and the right amount of integration of each sub-space with the main space.

In a well-designed open space, each space will have its own character, and will flow easily and comfortably into other spaces – especially if the spaces are successfully “nested.” It should feel natural, not forced, with each space retaining its own character within the larger space, but still being a part of it. Done properly, the “separation” or division of spaces gives the right feelings of liberation or enclosure appropriate to the space.

It’s important that the definition of each each space within the larger whole is done a subtle manner so as to avoid there simply being a space like 'one large barn.' Some popular methods of achieving this separation are:

different floor coverings in different space;
changes in floor level between spaces;
furnishing layouts;
the use of sliding or folding 'screens';
the use of room proportions and wall returns to break up a larger space into smaller sub-spaces;
posts and the like between spaces;
changes in window and door layouts, e.g., a french door layout in one part of a space, and perhaps clerestory windows in the other;
changes in ceiling height, including the use of lowered ceilings and lowered ceiling decks, seen below:

The method by which the separation is achieved is usually dependent on the extent and quality of the spatial separation required.

Which brings me to ceiling decks – a special kind of “overhead plane” - essentially a lowered “ceiling slab'” that you can see over, and in which you might have downlights, uplights and other services – and that the cunning designer can use to frame a space; to separate two spaces; to direct a view; to give order to a series of spaces; and another way by which to squeeze down the “space bubble” of occupants in a space to give either “containment” or “release.”

And oddly enough, if the “decks” are done well and they become the primary ordering element of a space – the means by which space in a building is “read” – then your walls, and other enclosures start to lose their importance. You’ve started to “break the box.”

Which maybe explains why you see them so rarely. Most modern designers like boxes. And they despise subtlety.

Ceiling decks offer a particularly subtle way both to 'frame a space' and to divide one space from another, but also – if you do them well -- lowered ceiling decks that 'frame' a space help to make that space and those around it appear larger than they are.

So basically, a lowered ceiling deck is simply a lowed or independent part of a ceiling, usually horizontal in the manner of an above-ground 'deck.' Below are some examples of lowered ceiling decks, ceiling dividers and “picture rails” (used to suggest a lowered ceiling) using different styles, and from different eras. See if you can see all that the designer as hoping to achieve with it:

Labels: Architectural Mini-Tutorial, Architecture

Queens Wharf

2009-09-13T13:38:00.000+12:00

This was my entry to the Queens Wharf ‘Party Central’ competition—a two-week only design competition (one A1 page only for the submission) that sadly became just another stillborn apology for mediocrity.

This Is Party Central on the Water. And It’s Got It All!

It’s a Permeable Ampitheatre – an Organic Palisade that gathers together the disparate energies of the waterfront, that relates to the scale of the Waitemata’s sparkling waters, and embraces the city, the harbour and the gulf.

It takes Queen Street out to the water – just where it was 50 years ago!

It gathers public, protected spaces around a raised amphitheatre at the water’s edge – with the Harbour and the Gulf as the stage, and waterside promenades on all sides.

It links pedestrians to the sea! Pedestrian ramps take away the twin barriers of the red fence and the road, and take pedestrians right into the heart of Party Central, and out to the harbour. The ramps interconnect up and down around the amphitheatre creating movement, circulation and excitement.

It features small, multi-functional, lettable spaces on each ramp, at each level. Cafes, bars, a food hall, meeting places, souvenirs, supporters’ headquarters and regalia; press, media, and TV crews; visitors from round the world will rent these spaces for a world trades fair of tourist centres, exhibition centres, and trade stands. Downstairs there’s space for car rental offices near cruise terminal and ferries. Keep the place busy from sunrise until late. (And use the rents instead of ratepayers’ money to finance development.)

It has a spiral-ramped Lookout Tower to experience the world’s greatest harbour – to look out to Mt Victoria, North Head, Rangitoto, Great Barrier, Coromandel and beyond – a Lookout Tower that after the Rugby World Cup will be fitted out into a world-class, water’s-edge Theatre, Gallery, Exhibition centre.

It’s a Lookout Tower that’s a Rugby World Cup Event -- with flag poles flying the flags of each playing nation: at the start of the tournament in order of their seeding, by the end of the tournament in order of their finishing. Which TV network could resist starting and finishing their daily RWC broadcast with a backdrop of competing nations’ flags, in ranking order, with the world’s most beautiful harbour beyond.

It has a Big Screen in the forefront of the Amphitheatre, viewable from every level. The screen rises up from its home at lower (ground) level on the Ampitheatre’s ‘stage machinery’ to become the focus of Party Central. After Rugby World Cup the same machinery can be used to elevate a Sound Shell to make this the outdoor Ampitheatre of choice for medium-sized open-air productions.

It has an Inflatable, Double-skinned Shell Roof used for wet weather events, tied down and filled with inflatable gas – floating above the revellers like one of New Zealand’s famed paragliders. Elliptically-shaped and with the RWC ball-sponsor’s logo (in return for a financial contribution for the floating roof), it becomes an unavoidable magnet for people and for the word’s TV cameras.

It has new jetties on the new public wharf for ferries and water taxis – needed for the new routes and services laid on for RWC and beyond.

On reflection, I probably should have forwent the computer generated ‘concept’ pics and gone with more explanatory pencil sketches. Something to remember for next time.

Still, it was fun to do.

Here, for example, are some sketch floor plans to give you some idea of how it all fitted together what’s proposed, from the bottom up (ie., from terminal entrance and circulation; to the main promenade level, and a typical ‘lettable’ floor.

Terminal Location Sketch:

Street Level/Terminal Entry Level/Promenade Undercroft:

Main Promenade Level:

Typical ‘Lettable’ Upper Amitheatre Level:

Architectural Mini-Tutorial: Breaking the box, part 1

2009-09-11T16:40:00.000+12:00

Look at how all three methods described above are used in the two deceptively simple plans below to suggest larger space than there is, and to link the spaces within to the landscape outside (you should be able to click on them to enlarge them).

I hope this has helped you to see more clearly how architectural space is about more than just laying out wee boxes. :-)

A Mt Eden house for a sloping site

2009-09-07T17:59:00.000+12:00

A challenge, this one, to produce a ‘spec home’ open to light and views on a narrow, very steeply sloping site with extensive views to the west.

The heart of the house is the lounge, from which almost the entire site and house can be enjoyed.

And the first glimpse of light over the hill brings light down to the house through its ‘lantern.’

45A Epsom Ave

2009-08-24T21:44:00.018+12:00

3 Bedrooms

2 Bathrooms

2 Garage

2 Off Street

View Map

Check school zones

Investment Details
Construction:	Brick, Monolithic and Iron
Accomodation:	Three bedrooms
Section Size:	450m²
No. of titles:	1
Capital Value:	$1090000

Full Description

Incredible opportunity for the astute person looking at buying a superbly located townhouse in one of Epsom's finest streets.

Walking distance to Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls Grammar so all schooling needs are taken care of.

Two storey standalone townhouse has a brick lower level with the upper level in need of recladding for you to profit from your investment.

Take the opportunity to purchase in one of Epsoms tightly held areas.

Large floor area 191m2
Huge outdoor covered decking
Double garaging
Sunny elevated outlook
Current CV $1.090.000.00

NB: Unfortunately drastically changed during construction from what was originally designed.


Click to view photograph

45A Epsom Ave: Proposed Renovations

2009-08-18T13:18:00.000+12:00

A client contacted me asking to fix a house he’d renovated a few years back based on my drawings, but which never really followed them—and never really worked.

This is what we came up with (the drawings show the existing arrangement as an underlay).

Rental Unit

2009-06-15T18:06:00.000+12:00

Proposal for a small rental unit as a ‘second dwelling’ on an East Auckland site, which opens up to a stream to the south-west.

ARCHITECTURAL MINI-TUTORIAL: It's all in the plan

2008-11-21T17:45:00.000+13:00

Like the stunning garden shed featured here a few weeks ago, this humble farm building shown here shows that good architecture isn't just confined to cathedrals. And like Bruce Goff's Gutman House I featured yesterday, we can see that the excitement of Haring's 1924 Gut-Garkau Farm is really all in the plan - just like it should be in all really good architecture,

Why's that? Because unlike the modernist architecture of, say, Mies van der Rohe, whose buildings could pretty much house anything, the plans of Hugo Haring always express the function for which they're intended -- in this case to house and service a bull and his cows in a cold climate. Hugo Haring, you see, wasn't a modernist. He designed organic architecture. As Frank Lloyd Wright describes it,

In an organic architecture the ground itself detemines all features: the climate modifies them: available means limit them: function shapes them.

What this means for the plan you can see above is that the form of each element can be traced to a functional need. For instance:

"The pointed-arch section of the barn reflects the choice of a lamella roof. It follows the line of structural thrust with interlocking small timbers and leaves the internal volume unencumbered by ties." [Peter Blundell-Jones]

That's a good thing for a barn: the result of that form reflecting those particular functions is that the forms becomes expressive of the function: or as Wright would say, form and function become one.

This is the integration we look for in good architecture. Blundell-Jones explains how the function of the barn generated the building:

"A simple rectangle in plan, the barn was planned so that unloading carts could pass through between the asymmetrically placed doors. The cowshed lies beneath the hayloft so that the cattle can be fed directly via a trapdoor.The intermediate floor slopes inward, both to facilitate spreading the hay and to guide rising breath of cattle to vents at the sides, reducing spread of infection. The framed structure allows a continuous window band at clerestorey level to maximise skylight, ventilation being achieved separately by flaps above. The pear-shaped plan gathers the cows around a food-floor which tapers with the quantity of food distributed, and the circulation space around the edge allows smooth flow. The guiding idea, though, was clearly to reflect the relationship between the 42 cows and the single bull, father of the herd and its genetic identity."

Andso simply and elegantly done

Architectural Mini-Tutorial: 'Capturing a View Alive'

2008-09-02T16:49:00.000+12:00

Inspired by my good friend Michael Newberry, from whose mini-tutorials on art I've learned so much, I've decided to post regular mini-tutorials on architecture to help interested readers learn a little of the elements of honest architecture.

I'm starting my first mini-tut by looking outside - which is is in fact the essence of good architecture: to link inside and outside. The very best demonstration of that principle at work is in traditional Japanese garden design, where it is considered essential to make the viewer part of the landscape.

The starting point with Japanese garden design (and in fact all good garden design), is to start from inside looking out. The main methods used to "capture a view alive" are either to link foreground and background with a middle ground, or by dynamic lines and forms leading the eye out into the landscape to capture it alive and make it part of your own space. In the words of one Japanese garden designer, the scene must lose its "thereness" so as to put the viewer into the frame.

These methods have been formalised under the principle of shakkei, or the art of using "borrowed scenery." As Teji Itoh explains:

    “The literal meaning of the Japanese word shakkei is ‘borrowed scenery’ or ‘borrowed landscape’—that is, distant views incorporated into garden settings as part of the design. In its original sense, however, shakkei means neither a borrowed scenery or a landscape that has been bought. It means a landscape captured alive..
    “Its implications run more or less like this: when something is borrowed, it does not matter whether it is living or nor, but when something is captured alive, it must invariably remain alive, just as it was before it was captured…
    “[From the point of view of Japanese] gardeners and nursery-men of former times … every element of the design was a living thing: water, distant mountains, trees, and stones. Without a realisation like this, it is impossible to perceive the essence of a borrowed landscape garden.”

These are some of the main elements used in such a garden to achieve the goal:

Trimming: Trimming of the view eliminates non-essentials, allowing one to focus on the essence, ie., the distant view. It is traditionally common to use low clay walls, pruned hedges or low hills or embankments, but the same principle can be utilised with any material, or even (as Frank Lloyd Wright so often does) with a house ...

Capture with tree trunks. This is the most common method of linking intermediary objects -- the aim is neither to obscure the landscape nor to frame it, but to slow the eye's movement across the landscape ...

Capture with a woods. The woods itself can be a trimming line ...

Capture with the sky. Often with the sky reflected in water, or with the sky asymmetrically related to a large element in the composition, such as a mountain or, as here, a tree. The effect is much like the famous Japanese prints of Mt Fuji, where a part of the mountain sits at one side of the frame, with one side trimmed to give a thrust into empty sky (and often, as below, with the distant view trimmed by the low plantings) ...

Capture with an eaves. Often used as the culmination of an entrance progressional, in which the psychological feeling of containment is instilled in the processional, then release is suddenly discovered, attained at the discovery of the open vista. The broad eaves trim the sky from the composition -- often parallel to a hedge as a trimming line (or here, at Fallingwater's guest house, trimmed by the walkway canopy leading to the main house below). The essence is the broad eaves thrusting out into the landscape, stressing the horizontal open vista.

Capture with a 'stone lantern.' The lantern itself is optional, but when faced with very simple scenery, with the foreground of a moderately complex garden, the link can be made by placing an object such as a stone lantern in the foreground, and also amidst the distant scenery -- due to the simplicity, the lantern stands out, and the two objects unite foreground and background. Look closely, and you'll see it ...

You will notice that 'capturing with a picture window' does not feature here, and with good reason: In Japanese garden design, this method is considered rather vulgar.

I hope this discussion of the elements of 'capturing a view alive' has been helpful.

First house

2008-08-07T18:47:00.000+12:00

Well, it was the first of my houses that was built anyway, way back in 1990 or so …

And it’s still there out in Blockhouse Bay, still being enjoyed by the original owners.

Holiday House 2 - Organon Architecture

2008-01-10T17:56:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I posted what I called Holiday House 1 to show you my idea of the ideal bach -- something integrated with its site; something casual enough to be relaxing yet with cunning aplenty to make it work well, and enough visual strength not to be overawed by its setting.

Here this evening is what I'll call Holiday House 2, also by Organon Architecture , using two large cantlivered 'hypar' shells to define space and shelter.

I think it has something of the same qualities as Holiday House 1, if I say so myself, and would grace any private, sloping bush-clad site overlooking water.

Or open country.

What's your own ideal bach like?

'Pinwheel' Tower - Organon Architecture

2007-12-21T18:02:00.000+13:00

I drove past the big hole in the ground yesterday on the corner of Albert and Victoria that will one day soon will become Auckland's second tallest building, and I reflected wistfully about this student project of mine from 1987 for the city block next door at Queen and Victoria, where the awful Philips Fox building(s) is/are now.

The pictures of the concept model are rather worse for wear, I’m afraid, but I still like the way it would have soared up out of that Queen St corner, and require of passersby just a little bit of time to get to know.

Vet Clinic - Organon Architecture, 1994

2007-10-24T18:04:00.000+13:00

A vet clinic I designed for a close friend nearly twenty years ago to inspire her to work towards her own practice. It succeeded! :-)

The clinic is designed to give a presence to the street, of course, and it places the hospitalised animals -- the very reason for the clinic -- at its very heart, with flat above, surgery to the rear and consulting rooms and waiting areas spilling out to the street, and opening out to gardens.

There are no hallways; internal circulation takes place through the central 'hospital' area (encouraging continual monitoring of patients). All other spaces are spun out from this, reflecting its importance, and this great central space comes through on the exterior as the 'crown' of the building.

A union of function and art, you might say.

Labels: Architecture, Organon Architecture

Hamilton House - Organon Architecture

2007-06-19T17:05:00.000+12:00

The Hamilton House by Organon Architecture featured here some months ago is now developing a lived-in feeling, as these few photos show . . .

Labels: Architecture, Organon Architecture

4/99 Aotea St

2007-02-20T07:43:00.000+13:00

Designed by PC in July 1990 as a simple spec house to complete (and complement) an existing four-unit complex overlooking Mission Bay. Text and pictures are from the Open2View site.

$715,000, Residential - Town House, 4/99 Aotea St

Suburb: Mission Bay Area: Auckland City Region: Auckland

Rooms: 4 bedrooms 2 bathrooms

Floor area: 260m² (2798 Sq. Feet) Lot size: Built In: 1992

This secure, stylish, modern home enjoys a quiet cul de sac setting just a few minutes stroll from Mission Bay, the parks & shops!

Warm northwest courtyard setting
Just refurbished

Keywords:

Features
Double Garage

2 Living areas

Two Renovations - Organon Architecture

2007-02-15T18:10:00.000+13:00

Two renovation projects currently on the boards at Organon Architecture -- one in Mt Eden, and one further south.

I look forward to seeing them set free of council, and let loose into the wild.

Some time soon would be good…

House, progress pics - Organon Architecture

2006-12-15T18:12:00.000+13:00

House in Hamilton nearing completion...

... the gift wrapping is nearly ready to come off ...

UPDATE: "Some drawings posted," as requested. :-)

LINK: Organon Architecture

Mt Eden House - Organon Architecture

2006-11-24T18:14:00.000+13:00

Speaking of 45A View Road, it was the first house I drew up on CAD (yes, I was a "late adopter").

Here's some pics.

Labels: Architecture, Organon Architecture

Townhouse, 2/99 Aotea St

2006-11-19T08:00:00.000+13:00

Designed by architect Robin Bilkie, and built by PC in 1987 for Basilton Developments as the first two of a four-unit development overlooking Mission Bay. Among the first Insulclad homes in Auckland. The description and pictures are from the AllRealEstate site.

LOOK NO FURTHER! Sold Wednesday 22-Nov-06

2/99 AOTEA ST ORAKEI

Features: Inground Spa, Ensuite

Tucked away in a private and sunny position this unique modern townhouse with views to the harbour is a rare find. Relax after work in the tropical palmed fringed courtyard garden, soak in the spa pool or enjoy entertaining your friends.

2 double bedrooms plus study
2 bathrooms both ensuites
Open plan kitchen, living & dining
Double internal access garage
Stroll to Mission Bay beach & cafes

Property Summary:

Category:: Townhouse
Bedrooms:: 2
Bathrooms:: 1
Garage:: Double
Features:: Inground Spa, Ensuite

Another look at Carlaw's "problems''...

2006-11-13T18:28:00.000+13:00

Trevor Mallard, that lame duck from Wainui to whom expertise has always been a stranger, is now offering expert advice to Auckland architects and designers to whom expertise and local knowledge is considered fundamental to their work.

Never one to see ignorance as a barrier to pushing other people around, Trevor tells us we have two weeks to respond to his decree of last Friday, and tells Carlaw Park promoters to stop flogging a dead horse.

But the problem here is that the promoters of the Carlaw Park option, many of whom have joined together as the Domain Stadium Promotion Group, have both expertise and local knowledge, and unlike Mallard they see what a Carlaw Park option can do for the city and park surrounds and realise that it's good -- or can be good. The 'expert advice' of Mallard, ignorant of everything but the magnitude of his own ego, is as shallow as he himself.
The problems with Carlaw Park, he says, are:

a private developer already has a contract for the area;
three hectares of the domain would need to be used and several hundred trees felled;
roading runs too close to the proposed area for the park, leaving inadequate space for people filling a 60,000 seat stadium to spill out on to afterwards.

Let's deal with each in turn.

A private retirement-home development is a barrier for using Carlaw park, he says, but disprupting New Zealand's biggest port, a five-billion dollar a year operation, is (he maintains) no barrier to building a bedpan on the port. To state the point is to see its stupidity. It is not beyond the wit of man to either relocate or renogotiate the retirement-home scheme -- it will however be enormously difficult to either relocate or reconfigure new Zealand's export-import gateway. You would think even a braindead bureaucrat could see that -- a sharp enough negotiator could see it and solve it in an afternoon.
Yes, three hectares of a little-used and rather seedy domain edge will probably be used for a Carlaw Park stadium -- though careful design can certainly minimise this -- and done properly, it will regenerate this domain edge and its linkages to the city, Newmarket and Parnell. It can be transormed from backwater to a vital part of the inner city. Now, Mallard claims this to be a problem (a view not shared by nine out of
the twenty Auckland councillors, including chairs of three key Auckland City Council committees – responsible for Environment, Urban Design, Transport and Recreation , all of whom might be expected to know the area a little better than either Mallard or his Wellington-based advisors), but even so it is hard to take as any kind of serious criticism when he apparently does not see any problem at all in inserting an enormous bedpan out at sea, right at the very centre of central Auckland's interface with its harbour.
The roading he talks about has an immediate link to a motorway system heading to almost every point of the compass, surely an asset rather than a problem. Furthermore, there is no problem whatsoever with 60,000 people spilling out of a Carlaw Park stadium onto this roadway since there is absolutely no need for them to do so. If egress is properly designed, perhaps along the lines I suggested the other day, then upper-level concourses to north, east and west can allow people to spill out in almost every direction, with links to the east to new rail stations and Parnell, to the north to a new Stanley Circus precinct, and to the westacross an over-road western concourse to Albert Park and (via travelator in existing tunnels) to the city beyond. Together this will easily absorb and painlessly disperse the spillover, without most not even touching the ground at Stanley Street level at all. However, how 60,000 people including vehicles will spill out easily from Mallard's bedpan onto Quay St is another story altogether, one which fine talk of a "boulevard" that can be "shut down" just doesn't even begin to solve ...

It seems to me that these 'problems' raised by the lame duck are neither problems nor thought through -- they are (as so much of Mallard's commentary frequently proves to be) convenient excuses by which to shut down debate. I would suggest either the Sports Minister or his advisers have another look at the Carlaw Park option so cursorily discarded and at the problems of the bedpan so easily overlooked. A good look.

Auckland's RWC Stadium: Another pitch for Carlaw Park

2006-10-24T18:26:00.000+13:00

We will today be told by our betters where they intend to spend our money on a stadium for Rugby World Cup 2011. The signals given by the politicians -- 'signals' being all we peasants deserve at this stage -- suggest that the bedpan on the waterfront is the preferred option. What a nonsense.
Said Geoff Vazey of Ports of Auckland about a waterfront stadium:

it simply cannot be constructed in time. He says the risks of pushing it through would be overwhelming.
He says before any land could be set aside for a stadium, the port would need an alternative site to conduct its business and it would be 2009 before building could even start.

And Sky Tower architect Gordon Moller said "it would wreck the waterfront." He's right. And Institute of Architects president Ian Athfield says it is is "important it fitted into its environment." That can't be done if it's put between city and harbour.

I still maintain that if you're going to spend this much of our money -- about a thousand dollars per taxpayer -- then we're entitled to have a say in what's going on. I don't think that's unreasonable. And I still maintain that of the options we know about, the Carlaw Park option is by far the best. (Pictured above is just one quickly-sketched example of what might be done there, and how it might appear from Grafton Gulley. )

Richard Simpson provided an excellent argument of the benefits of a Carlaw Park stadium, which I excerpted here a few weeks back. [See his powerpoint presentation here -- go on, take a good look], and it really is worth considering seriously (the site is pictured below, looking from Parnell towards the city).

Done right, a new stadium should enhance the city on a much wider scale than just its immediate location, and a good Carlaw Park stadium offers the following benefits and opportunities which are good for both the stadium, for its surrounds, and for the long-term benefit of the city (you can see at the top of the page and just below an example of how it might be done):

there is immediate access to motorways north, south and west, with ample provision for parking under the stadium
immediate access also to rail lines north and south, with stations developed as part of the stadium, and an easy walk to a Kingdon St station for trains heading west -- all up easily twice the capacity of Britomart can be added with ease
the stadium can be accessed on up to three sides through large concourses, as shown in the plan above
few noise or residential problems
superb views from the stadium itself out to the city, to Rangitoto and the inner harbour -- a great advertisement to broadcast to the world
opportunity to link domain, Stanley St Tennis, new Stanley Circus precinct, and new Vector Arena into one sports and entertainment precinct -- an exciting new part of the city
the Carlaw Park site is already in a natural bowl, so there is no blocking of existing views, and it offers the opportunity to produce something spectacular rather than something that needs to be hidden
there is an opportunity to enhance and develop all areas around the stadium to the long-term benefit of the city: the university edge; the 'armpit' of Grafton Gully, which with the development of a new 'Stanley Circus Precinct' makes this a destination rather than an eyesore; the 'backside' of Parnell, which by linking up with the domain makes this area the 'front lawn' of Parnell
opening up Parnell to the domain by bridging the rail line, and developing domain-edge cafes
opens up the university to the domain, and to domain-edge cafes, and brings the lower domain back to the city by making it more easily accessible
linking Parnell and the city through the stadium by bridging the rail line, offering a new footbridge and stadium access
introduction of a travellator in existing tunnels under Albert Park and Constitution Hill from the end of the footbridge to Victoria St, in the heart of the city, works for both easy game-day stadium access and, with the addition of ample under-stadium parking, allows for easy everyday 'park-and-slide' access to and from the city right at the foot of a convenient motorway connection
a city stadium, rather than a suburban one, offers all the pre- and after-match pleasures pleasures we already associate with the already successful Cake Tin in Wellington -- pleasures which would be made even more local by development of a new Stanley Street Circus Precinct, and enhancement of the links to Parnell and city as described.

As I've suggested before, despite the history of Eden Park it's time to recognise that as a severely constricted suburban stadium it no longer fits the needs of a world-class city. Other cities have realised when it's time to let historic stadiums go in order to create something truly worthwhile in a better location. Time to bite the bullet and use its assets as financial fertiliser for something truly world class that enhances the city for the long term. Carlaw Park is the place for that, not the waterfront -- a waterfront stadium is a short-term solution with too many attendant and expensive difficulties.
If that is given as today's answer, which we all now expect to the case, then the wrong questions are being asked. And whichever location is chosen, there is still time, albeit briefly, for a competition to choose a design. This is too important, and too bloody expensive, to rely simply on the closed group of designers presently being talked about behind closed doors.
UPDATE 1: Cullen's comments yesterday about the stadium decision provide some of the only details to date that anyone outside the elect has to go on. Says the Herald, "He dismissed the Carlaw Park option as affecting the Domain..." I think it's clear enough from what I've shown above that any affect on the Domain can only be positive. Maybe that's why it's being dismissed?
UPDATE 2: David Farrar highlights the problems with the decision-making-by-Nomenklatura currently being imposed on us. As he says, given the secrecy and he attendant concerns, "the potential for disaster seems high."

I think about this stadium proposal, developed in secret by politicans, and look at what is missing:
* There is no agreement with the sporting codes on whether they would use the stadium
* There is no agreement with the local authorities
* There is no agreement with the owners of the land
* The exact location seems to change by the day
* There is no owner (such as the Trust in Wgtn) and manager for the stadium!!
* There is no agreement on who will pay
* There are no sponsors
* There are no planning consents

As far as I can tell, and I await the official announcement, every single pillar necessary for a sound decision is absent.

He's right you know. Read on.
UPDATE 3: When Keith Locke and Peter Dunne both talk sense you know something's up.

United Future Peter Dunne said today he was "seriously alarmed at what is looming as a complete shambles over the location and funding of the new national stadium."
No one knew who the experts were the Government kept referring to and many people who should have been consulted had not.

And Keith had this to say about the notion of the waterfront bedpan:

We do have concerns... that it might end up like a blot on the seascape and undermine the good work that's been done along the Auckland waterfront to make it more people-friendly...

And, gosh-darn it, both Dunne and Locke are right -- and given that under normal circumstances both would be needed to vote for the Clark Government's solution, it would suggest McCully has already sold out on behalf of his party.
UPDATE 4: Just so you know, Parnell and Newmarket businesses are right behind Carlaw Park:

Parnell Mainstreet Inc, Newmarket Business Association, Parnell Community Committee and Friends of the Domain believe rebuilding Carlaw Park is a better option. "We've got an existing derelict downtown venue, a landowner that hasn't ruled such a proposition out, and the ability to claim a fraction of the Domain for public use.
"So as far as we're concerned it's a no-brainer," groups spokesman Cameron Brewer said. "It's in a natural amphitheatre, a motorway runs to it and the main trunk line runs past it. "It has all the CBD advantages the Bledisloe option has. In fact it's better because it's even more strategically located and is not to be a 35-metre high giant box on the water's edge."

UPDATE 5: And cost?

Newmarket Business Association spokesman Cameron Brewer said the Government should reconsider redeveloping Auckland's Carlaw Park, which was located at the bottom of the city's domain. A proposal three years ago put a $100 million pricetag on building a 25,000 seat stadium there. A 60,000 seat stadium would cost more, but significantly less than the $700,000 touted for the waterfront.

UPDATE 6: (2:25pm) It's the Bedpan: And now they "want your say." They say. From the Herald report:

The Government said today it strongly prefers a new $500 million-plus stadium on the Auckland waterfront for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
But Sports Minister Trevor Mallard has also called on Aucklanders to give it a clear indication whether the city wants a new stadium or whether Eden Park should be upgraded.
The preferred waterfront site is over Marsden Wharf between Captain Cook and Bledisloe wharves
The Government has been advised by a technical panel led by Ken Harris the chief executive of Wellington's port [my emphasis]
[They want] building work on the stadium underway by December 2007 and are prepared to rewrite various laws to clear the way for the development.
...architects Warren and Mahoney ... envisage a translucent 37 metre-tall structure, similar to the Allianz Stadium bult in Munich, Germany, for this year's soccer World Cup (ie., the bedpan).
...the Eden Park Trust Board has an assessment from its own quantity surveyors that says a new waterfront stadium could cost more than $1 billion...
Mr Mallard wants Aucklanders and local bodies to have their say on which [of either Eden park or bedpan] they prefer within two weeks...

UPDATE 7: (3:25pm) Government's full announcement including 'Fact Sheet' is here at Scoop: Waterfront Stadium is Government Preference.
LINKS: Hang on, what about Carlaw Park? - Richard Simpson, Public Address
Carlaw Park: Rugby World Cup Stadium [Powerpoint presentation] - Richard Simpson, Public Address
A site for a Rugby World Cup stadium - Not PC (Oct, 2006)
Mallard ready to go with stadium - NZ Herald
RELATED: Stadium, Politics-NZ, Auckland, Sports

A site for a Rugby World Cup Stadium?

2006-10-14T18:24:00.000+13:00

It's not often I praise a councillor, in fact I don't think I've had the pleasure before, but I have to say that Cr. Richard Simpson's suggestion posted on Russell Brown's blog that any money spent redeveloping stadiums for the Rugby World Cup be spent at Carlaw Park is an idea that has legs. [See Simpson's Powerpoint presentation here.] If you're going to do it (which is certainly another argument I'm happy to argue against) then at least do it right.

A stadium on the waterfront is just a nonsense. And continuing to pour money into the white elephant that Eden Park becoming is just foolishness built upon stupidity. Building it at the foot of the domain at the site above can do so much for the city, as Simpson explains, that any other alternative just looks flawed.

Now I must confess, I do have a weakness for cities with good sports stadiums -- Melbourne for example does it so well with Olympic Park/MCG/Laver Arena/Telstra Dome and all the transport connections that connect these so easily to the city that (Wellington's 'Cake Tin' and its own connections with the city excluded) it makes our own facilities seem decidely third-rate. Having a beer in a downtown pub just fifteen minutes before a game starts and then shooting out easily and comfotably to the MCG or Telstra Dome to watch a titanic sporting struggle is one of the world's great pleasures, but it's not something you're ever going to manage with a stadium sitting out at Eden Park.

As Simpson points out, redeveloping the carpark of Carlaw Park has enormous potential for beautifully re-linking Parnell to the domain and and renovating the Waipapa stream (right) and domain edge into something gorgeous:

This backyard of Parnell facing the Domain (left) could become its front lawn. Cafes could be set up in this sheltered valley where people could sit by the stream - with the Domain, Stadium and a sleek new Domain/Museum/Stadium station could serve as backdrop.

Furthermore, the site already has superb motorway transport links, and with the railway running straight past it's as simple as placing a station (or two) right there.

A stadium on this Carlaw Park site would catalyse the use of public transport and transform Auckland into a world class city. Carlaw Park could be serviced by a new Musuem/Domain/Parnell Station on the Southern line, at the same time as a temporary Kingdon St Station on the Western line. Run concurrently this is more than twice the capacity offered by Britomart. For road transport Carlaw Park is serviced by SH16 at its front door.

This site is very near Auckland hospital for rapidly addressing serious injuries. In situations of major emergencies, the stadium at this site would serve as strategic assembly point (eg. as New Orleans Super Dome served during Katrina).

In wet weather, a covered stadium on this site could serve as a standby contingency for major events in the Domain. The Museum steps could serve a podium for the opening of the RWC and for prize giving etc. where hundreds of thousands of people could attend and participate. Auckland would shine at its best for international eyes.

There are many benefits a Stadium on this site could serve for better connecting Parnell, the University, Domain, and CBD together for pedestrians and cyclists. A stadium on this site could also provide car parking for these areas [perhaps even under the stadium?], and could enable the car parking in the Domain to be greatly reduced.

I have to say, I do think the idea has merit. Eden Park is a dinosaur both in terms of access and facilities, and the site's many restrictions make these hindrances major ones and more difficult. Time in my view to bite the bullet, get rid of Eden Park and (if the money's going to be spent anyway) build a proper world class stadium in a way that develop and enhance what is presently only an 'armpit' of the city to become something great

And after all, with sites in that part of town going for between $300-500,000, bowling Eden Park and selling off the land would net something approaching half what any new stadium would cost anyway.

LINKS: Hang on, what about Carlaw Park? - Richard Simpson, Public Address

Carlaw Park: Rugby World Cup Stadium [Powerpoint presentation] - Richard Simpson, Public Address

RELATED: Auckland, Sports

Architecture V Architecture: Artist's House, by Organon Architecture

2006-09-19T16:26:00.000+12:00

This last post of my own 'Top Five' in our recent architectural debate is, per request, of my own favourite New Zealand building.

There's some serious contenders around for my own favourite local building.

Karori's Futuna Chapel by John Scott is a personal favourite -- the scale, the light and the playfully geometric 'simple yet mysterious' roof is intensely evocative, even in its current setting -- but the photographs available hardly do justice to the space.

Auckland University's famous Clock Tower Building and its related campus buildings is another personal favourite, and this is as much for its original ornamentation and its qualities as an innovative inaugurating College Building from which to begin a campus as it is for the excitement of knowing that it's architect was Frank Lloyd Wright's draughtsmen's draughtsmen, and so the closest we've got to our own original NZ Wright -- however, for mine the aggressive symmetry and the similarity to a wedding cake are a detraction.

Architect Claude Megson has several candidates, but with Claude's buildings we encounter a familiar problem: Claude did not design for those who flick loftily through magazines or to impress a building's neighbours, he designed houses for his clients, houses so good that those who commissioned them often didn't want to leave them. But they don't photograph well. Their qualities are 'built in' rather than worn on the sleeve, and you often don't notice them even when you're driving right past.

So in this case then for my own personal NZ favourite I not so humbly submit one of my own sketch designs, as yet unbuilt, for an artist's house in the Wairarapa. It largely follows my own ideas on the promise of the New Zealand house.

This is a two-level house with roof deck, set in rural Wairarapa beneath the Tararua Ranges (to fit the landscape in the painting at bottom). The site is is very near the rail line to and from Wellington, and the intention is for a home from which the artist can work, enjoy life with his family, and welcome in 'art tourists' who can view his work, watch him paint, and buy, buy, buy. The house has four wings and four courtyards-- each with its own definite aspect and character -- all centred around the reason for the house: the artist's own work displayed in the double-height cubic gallery around which the various wings pinwheel out, and above which a roof deck offers a lookout to the beauty of the surrounding landscape, (captured in paint in the image at the foot of this post.)

Working clockwise around the four compass points of the house:

we first have the studio wing and studio garden at the eastern part of the compass, over the driveway from the gallery and connected through the upper level east-west axis, and looked over by the mezzanine gallery and an internal 'picture frame' window' from the master bedroom;
to the south is the garage and service court, accessed from the driveway which runs under the bridging upper floor;
the west axis is the more formal, accessed from the main entrance through the gallery and into the lounge and sculpture gallery, and then out to the pool and the two contrasting courtyards and the landscape beyond;
running from the entrance the north wing comprises in order kitchen, family room and homeschooling room: this, with children's bedrooms above is the family wing, spilling out to the afternoon courtyard

The gallery is the heart, the anchor, the very reason for the house, around which the life of the house plays out, and spills out into the landscape. Vertical concrete 'pylons' -- which share with portal steel frames the job of supporting the house -- display more of the artist's work throughout the house, all of it carefully lit from above.

An upper-level steel catwalk passes east-west through the top-lit gallery from 'studio wing' to 'guest wing,' taking guest all the way across the house from mezzanine lounge level (where provision is made for future guest bedrooms) in a straight line through the upper gallery and over the drive to the studio. This axis emerges at each end of the house with decks that reach out to the landscape, as does the family wing, from which a large deck offers sweeping views over the landscape to the east, north, and west. The more I rediscover this house, designed over five years ago, the more I enjoy it. To see it built would be, well ... I'd be very excited.

Unbuilt Piha Project - Organon Architecture, 1996

2006-08-28T16:18:00.000+12:00

Just another unbuilt project from the files of Organon Architecture, this one for a spectacularly wild setting above Piha Beach.

Sketch above.

Sketch plans at left.

Villa Renovation

2006-05-17T15:39:00.000+12:00

Some ‘surgical’ extensions to a Waiuku farmhouse to upgrade and open up the living areas.

Sketch - Organon Architecture

2006-03-27T16:14:00.000+12:00

A sketch of something in its early stages that's on the boards here at Organon Architecture.

Hypar houses

2006-02-09T14:08:00.000+13:00

I’ve been playing around with “hypar” shells again: thin shells made of a doubly-curved surface that equalises stresses across the whole surface, which and can be generated out of straight lines (as you can see from the bottom pics)–easy to construct, and so expressive.

The car is there to give the models a sense of scale. And some style. :-)

Papamoa Beach House, 1998

2006-01-10T21:08:00.000+13:00

Coromandel cottage

2005-10-06T19:43:00.000+13:00

Hurrell House, Ramarama

2005-06-16T15:23:00.000+12:00

A ground-hugging country house for a grower and his lovely family in Franklin, South Auckland.

The floor has two main levels: the kitchen and informal public areas are on a lower level; the gallery, bedrooms lounge and terraces are half-a-metre (about seat-height) above.

Houses by Fred Stevens and by Peter Cresswell at Lake Tarawera

2005-05-05T17:39:00.000+12:00

Houses by Fred Stevens and by Peter Cresswell at Lake Tarawera

Methven Ski Chalet Project, 2000

2004-11-17T21:11:00.000+13:00

A project for an owner-occupied ‘chalet’ looking out to the Alps, with a ‘twin’ intended for sale

Project: Tumunui, Rotorua #1

2004-11-15T20:00:00.001+13:00

A project for a spectacular elevated site outside Rotorua, with views to the north-west to a local geothermal outcrop, to the south-east down to Mt Ruapehu; out to the west to a small lake, and off to the north-east to Rainbow Mountain.

A concrete home, as ordered, wrapped around the hill top not on it ("build on the hill and you take away the hill"). The lap pool, which also forms the ‘gateway’ to the forecourt entry, lines up on the Mt Ruapehu-geothermal axis, ‘pointing’ at both—the pergolas lead out to the Rainbow mountain view.

LOCATION CONCEPT:

Project: Tumunui, Rotorua #2

2004-11-14T20:03:00.000+13:00

A second (lesser) proposal for the same site.

Lower Floor Plan:

Main Floor Plan:

Upper Floor Plan:

Auckland apartment renovation, 1996

2004-11-13T21:14:00.000+13:00

Renovation of a ground-floor apartment looking over Westhaven, removing the rabbit warren of walls and the assorted hindrances to the view.

Sketch for a Mt Eden ‘Spec Home’

2004-03-15T21:02:00.000+13:00

Sketch for a Mt Eden ‘spec home.’ Lower Floor: Main Floor:

It was all changed somewhat in the finished version…

Montessori Children’s House

2003-11-02T15:57:00.000+13:00

I’ve had the pleasure of renovating one Montessori school, on Auckland’s North Shore, and of designing this one as a representative project.

Terrace:

It takes its inspiration from Muriel Dwyer’s suggestion that Dr Montessori favoured an octagonal layout for her children’s houses—which allows equal space for each of the four main subject areas, and the four minor areas, without preferencing any—and the attempt to solve the ‘inside-outside’ problem which seems to plague so many Montessori children’s houses.

Main Space:

Entrance, from Car Park:

The staff wing and parents’ area is exploded from the main space, and both staff and kitchen areas overlook the garden and terrace.

‘Afternoon’ Terrace,’ with Staff Wing on left:

It might still need a bit of work on the colour scheme . . . still, this is only a ‘sketch’ model.

Looking North, with light from above to the main space.

Looking South-East. The child and Directress give some idea of scale (and unfortunately the Archicad programme used to produce this has no dress-wearing Directresses!):

Martinborough House

2003-10-15T20:56:00.000+13:00

A house in which to hunker down and enjoy the vineyards just over the fence, and the distant sunburnt mountains beyond.

Hard Rock Cafe, Crete, 1992

1994-03-15T19:33:00.000+13:00