Double Feature : Part 1 - Architecture for Humanity

Last Thursday, while most of us were in the midst of a 3Ds Max / Excel spreadsheet frenzy, a couple of very intersesting speakers came to the school to provide a two-part lecture highly relevant to the discussions we've been having here on Critters. Alexandra Lee, from Auckland University and Mark Tyrrell, from the University of Sydney spoke about their involvement with two organisations doing some very interesting and worthwhile work across the globe.

Alexandra, who is currently completing her thesis, is part of the Auckland chapter of Architecture for Humanity. The organisation provides design services to communities amidst humanitarian crises, and was sparked by the urgent need for housing for Kosovan refugees in 1999. Acting as a liason between communities, construction industries and policy-makers, the organisation does more than token one-off built gestures and seeks solutions which integrate the communities into the rebuilding process. This is in opposition to the remark that 'architects are often the last people needed in disaster reconstruction', as David Sanderson writes in his article for the Guardian,

"As I was told by a professor when studying some 20 years ago, the role of architects in these circumstances is 'marginal at best'. In fact, most architects are taught almost the exact opposite of what is needed. Architects are taught to focus on the product (a building), whereas humanitarian practitioners major on the process (involving people)."

Architecture for Humanity goes against this stereotype and consults with government bodies and aid organisations, promoting socially conscious design through advocacy and education, strenghtening communication between the beneficiaries and those delivering aid.

In terms of what the Auckland chapter gets up to, from what I inferred from the lecture, it seems to be mainly fundraising and participating in the parallel design competitions which the organisation runs. There's not currently a Wellington chapter, but fellow critter Ms Collinson has been in touch with Alexandra and is keen to get something going. There's plenty of information out there about Architecture for humanity, check out their website for a start. They also edited the book Design Like You Give a Damn, which is well worth a read.

Stay tuned for part 2 : The very interesting Mark Tyrrell on his work for Global Studio : in Diepsloot, South Africa and Bhopal, India.

Te Aro School

Te Aro Primary came up as a possible site for our design build studio. At the moment part of the school (the area I’ve labeled “site”) has been borrowed by the team constructing the new artificial playing field in front of Te Puni. Once the new field has been completed the site will be flattened and turned into a (irregularly shaped) soccer field while the school decides on its future.

As I work part time at the school I’ve managed to have a few chats with the principal, Bryce, and gage his interest in the kind of project we would be doing if the studio were to go ahead. He described the site as a ‘blank canvas’, and seemed fairly excited about the possibility of us being able to provide a genuinely useful service to the school through some sort of intervention. He said probably the most useful thing we could provide would be seating or shelters – however as no real plans for the site have been made, he suggested we come up with a proposal for the site and have the school consider it.

One of the most interesting things Bryce said was that for most school playground upgrades he tries to let the kids have what they want. At some stage he’ll go through a process of collecting student ideas for the site, and then will do the best he can to implement them. As a fun experiment at work the other day I got a few of the young kids (5-6year olds) to draw a play area they’d like to have at the school. There were some pretty rad proposals…the highlights being a drawing clearly influenced by Lebbeus Woods and some sort of animal health care centre/ sci-fi zoo. If this studio went ahead it would be awesome for us to incorporate the students in some way…. not just as one of the ways to fulfill the ‘research’ components to the paper, but to ultimately create a more successful project.

I recommend anyone who’s interested to come and check out the site, it’s really quite cool. The walkway next to it is a node of foot traffic where two or three pathways converge into one, and now that the site is being flattened (it was once elevated) it will make it the same elevation as both the walkway and the new artificial field. This makes the site quite a public area, at least, more publicly visible than any other area of the school. The only thing separating the kids from the uni students / adults walking past is flimsy waist high wire mesh fence. I’m not saying I think that’s a bad thing, it just creates an interesting atmosphere. It’s a boundary that could be addressed by any intervention we made.

Small primary schools, such as Te Aro, generally suffer from a lack of funding. They don’t have a lot of money to spend on maintenance, let alone construction projects and especially designers. Te Aro is distinct from other school’s I’ve been involved with in that the range of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds the kids come from is SO diverse. It’s a community in itself, and it embodies a lot of the ‘struggling minority’ aspects that have been addressed by Rural Studio type projects. In that sense I can’t think of a more perfect candidate for a design-build studio.

Next steps anyone?
I reckon a site visit on a sunny day needs to happen,
and probably another meeting / chat with whoever to make this actually happen.

Superstudio 2010

It's Friday morning. It's 7am. It's amazing we've all made it to the train station on time. 30 bleary-eyed VUW SOADers congregate at Wellington railway station to embark upon a journey to the supercity.  We may have been coerced with free train travel, mention of snacks and of course a good old party, but the reason we're up so damn early is to get to Superstudio.

Superstudio is an event run by your very own SANNZ (Student Architecture Network of New Zealand) in association with SONA (Australia's equivalent) with the intention of fostering socialisation and activity throughout the architecture students of NZ.  Their goals are very much like our own here at Critters - enriching our own education by taking responsibility, and ensuring our interests are explored.

So, come 8pm, we're in Auckland. We're hyped from the hilarious games on the train, and exhausted from the confinement. Maybe I shouldn't have done that all-nighter the night before either. Ohwell. We make quite the entrance into a lecture hall occupied by Auckland University and Unitec students. It's fair to say the Wellington contingency outshone the Auckland schools combined, in both number and spirit.

Time to hear the brief and meet the team mates.

Define 'place x', which lies between the boundary of the urban and the suburban. Activate said place through play. Names of teams are called from a list. I hear the names called, I don't know the people but I find myself with a fourth year VUWer and a first year Unitecette - Sophie and Anna.

By now it's 10.30. I've been awake for near on 40 hours by now (my own fault) but we sit down to start to chat about ideas. We agree that 'play' needn't necessarily require the interaction of other people - it is a highly subjective, individual and personal experience. The mind plays all day long, when we're strolling down the streets, seeing some things not others, imagining the extents and possibilities of everyday objects. So we also agree that place x could be these tangential explorations of existing places, that seem to happen on journeys between home and work for instance. But now it's midnight, and we're tired, so we retract to our sleeping places and agree to meet back at Unitec in the morning.

9.30am Saturday. Breakfast! Delicious muesli and yoghurt and things laid out to feed our hungry bodies and minds. With a bit of sleep under my belt, and a couple of cups of tea later, I'm almost functional. So, where were we? Oh yeah, place x. We're also in Auckland, which as you know is a massively sprawly city, with motorways galore and a hugely underutilised  public transport system. This totally works with our idea of a journey, and how many times have you sat on a bus or train and imagined the lives of those familiar strangers who surround you? That is play, my friends. It may be invisible, but it sure happens.

11am. So, feeling a little bit inspired, we walk in the rain to Mt Albert train station. The first train arrives within minutes. Where are we going? Who cares, we just want to take some photos of people riding trains. So we do. And I get told off, by this guy.

12pm Tail between our legs, we jump off at the next station, look around and wonder when the next damn train will be. Half an hour. Bleck, waiting around in this weather is no fun. Where the hell are we anyway? It says Morningside Station. There's a thing on the ground with BroTown characters saying 'Morningside 4 life'. Rad, we're officially in BroTown. I guess it's where the show is set, so we decided to name our all-girl group BroTown as an homage to the journey.

12.30pm. Back on the train to Unitec we get the shots we're after, and after another wet walk back into the first year studio we get to work putting together photoshop collages and talking through our ideas with the guest tutors. By this stage we'd decided that the way we wanted to activate place x through play was to create an interface for daydreaming.  To merge the imagination and reality.  Our first talk with a guest tutor was actually kind of discouraging, he seemed to want to 'architecturalise' our idea by turning it into some kind of kiosk, whereas we were pointed down a much more fanciful route. Talks with the following tutors were awesome though, they were totally on the same page and super encouraging. What a relief.

6.20pm. Ten minutes before hand in. Collages done and our idea clarified, I'm desperately trying to throw them into powerpoint. It's crashing. It's not doing what I want it to. Shit! We were getting by in such a relaxed manner up until this last moment.

6.30pm PHEW. HANDED IN.

Straight to the lecture theatre to present.

Boy do I wish I had video footage of the hilarity which ensued. Man. You really had to be there (and you should have been).  A personal favourite quote came from our very own Maxwell while describing his exciting bike ramp scheme:  "even though, I have not played sport in many years, I still retain enough momentum, to ride on a bicycle up these timbers."

There were presentations featuring Justin Bieber, a centre which acted as a drug den by night and kindergarten by day, a dance sequence with with improvised sound effects. Some presentations were highly theoretical. Some were beautifully poetic. Some were very similar to one another. All were fantastic, thoughtful and incredible considering the short amount of time in which they were produced.

7.45pm Awards Ceremony!

First of all, prizes were awarded to specific categories.

The Oscar for best performance went to......... none other than Maxwell for his enthusiastic and beautifully awkward eloquence we know so well.

The colouring in book for team with best renders went to...... the kids who did the drug den / kindy for their 'atmospheric' perspectives.

Time for the finalists.

Third place went to a team who made a wormhole which makes time stop (don't we all want one of those).

Second place went to the beautifully performed dance by brick boys.

First place.... drumroll.... BROTOWN!  Wooooohoooooooooo! The judges loved the scheme, fantastic!

10pm. Party time.  Subsidised drinks. Dancing til dawn.

7am. Still in town, so we see the kids off on the train, followed by a hungover ferry ride for a sleep and some breakfast from some wonderfully hospitable parents. Beautiful day on the North Shore. Time to relax til we fly home on monday.

All in all, good times. See you next year, Superstudio.