Tales to tell - Weaving Indigenous Narratives in Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour

<p>How does one design a contemporary Indigenous Pacific architecture? Can the structure of Indigenous narratives of multiple Pacific cultures reposition the space of contemporary architecture? This thesis primarily drives Indigenous Pacific narratives as a catalyst for multicultural identity in a contemporary setting. Te Awarua-o-Porirua harbour presents environmental dysphoria due to cultural indifferences, poor harbour health, and disconnected harbour spaces contemplating a script for a resilient harbour. In response, this thesis argues for a multi-cultural architecture speculating an intervention that converges Indigenous narratives of a diverse city — particularly Māori and Samoan to suggest a “harbour settlement” that reflects the harbour’s intrinsic socio-cultural and historical context. This thesis develops a design that characterises Māori and Samoan cultural narratives by exploring the context of narrative creation — a series of exercises transcribing a repositioning of Indigenous ideals into narratives. In doing so, the study invests in translating Porirua’s most prominent Indigenous identities to their urban architecture. In opposition of the current environment that fails to recognise Indigenous treasure — urban development that has failed to recognise iwi Ngāti Toa Rangatira as its kaitiaki (guardians) — this thesis contemplates an amphibious settlement to mediate a community-harbour relationship. The design aims to create a series of architectural segments termed ‘Ngā Kaitiaki e Whitu: The Seven Sentinels’ that take the form of a harbour settlement. Indigenous Pacific narratives have frequently translated through architecture as an ornament or façade, offering an opportunity to capitalise on an alternative repositioning of Indigenous narratives as a framework to develop contemporary Indigenous spaces. By introducing a new Indigenous harbour settlement, this study explores a spatial concept known as Va in Samoan or Wā in Māori — a concept of space interwoven throughout the fabric of the Pacific regions, proposing new criteria for Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour.</p>

Tales to tell - Weaving Indigenous Narratives in Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour

<p>How does one design a contemporary Indigenous Pacific architecture? Can the structure of Indigenous narratives of multiple Pacific cultures reposition the space of contemporary architecture? This thesis primarily drives Indigenous Pacific narratives as a catalyst for multicultural identity in a contemporary setting. Te Awarua-o-Porirua harbour presents environmental dysphoria due to cultural indifferences, poor harbour health, and disconnected harbour spaces contemplating a script for a resilient harbour. In response, this thesis argues for a multi-cultural architecture speculating an intervention that converges Indigenous narratives of a diverse city — particularly Māori and Samoan to suggest a “harbour settlement” that reflects the harbour’s intrinsic socio-cultural and historical context. This thesis develops a design that characterises Māori and Samoan cultural narratives by exploring the context of narrative creation — a series of exercises transcribing a repositioning of Indigenous ideals into narratives. In doing so, the study invests in translating Porirua’s most prominent Indigenous identities to their urban architecture. In opposition of the current environment that fails to recognise Indigenous treasure — urban development that has failed to recognise iwi Ngāti Toa Rangatira as its kaitiaki (guardians) — this thesis contemplates an amphibious settlement to mediate a community-harbour relationship. The design aims to create a series of architectural segments termed ‘Ngā Kaitiaki e Whitu: The Seven Sentinels’ that take the form of a harbour settlement. Indigenous Pacific narratives have frequently translated through architecture as an ornament or façade, offering an opportunity to capitalise on an alternative repositioning of Indigenous narratives as a framework to develop contemporary Indigenous spaces. By introducing a new Indigenous harbour settlement, this study explores a spatial concept known as Va in Samoan or Wā in Māori — a concept of space interwoven throughout the fabric of the Pacific regions, proposing new criteria for Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour.</p>

Urban tourism space based on bike-sharing tourist in Yogyakarta city

This paper identifies the urban tourism space in a complex way as chosen by the bike-sharing tourists in Yogyakarta. The space is defined as not only the tourist attraction object which has become a common attraction but also the elements of urban architecture such as landmarks, districts, paths, edges, and nodes that becoming lanes, stop points, and the destination for the tourist when cycling around using bike-sharing. The data collecting used in this research is person-cantered mapping by following the bike-sharing tourists’ movement and giving questionnaires to find out the tourists’ motivation in using bike-sharing for tourism. The hypothesis shows that the tourists would prefer to choose the common attraction as an urban tourism space in Yogyakarta. But by cycling, the tourists will be able to seek a new experience because they can be more flexible in exploring the space with uniqueness which has the shape of urban architecture elements. The research results showed that landmarks and paths were the two urban architecture elements that gave strong characteristics toward urban tourism space, as preferred by the bike-sharing tourists in Yogyakarta. The tourist attraction with both characteristics was located around the city centre. It indicated that the distribution of visits is still centrally located close to the bike shelters. So that the tourists could go to the other unique destinations in Yogyakarta, thus the researcher recommends that the bike shelters need to be evenly spread approaching the tourism attractions and amenities.

Bespoke Urban Factory

<p>A change in consumer values has resulted in the traditional factory becoming outdated and out of touch. The ever-changing rapid and exponential development in high-tech manufacturing technologies is enabling humankind to realise products and efficiencies never conceived of until recently. Mass production is a thing of the past. People want options – bespoke products and services with the ease and precision of a well-articulated assembly line. The consumer wants to understand the process, production practises and effects of the choices they make. Since the emergence of the city itself, the public marketplace has been a critical node for urban vitality and liveliness – an assemblage of skilled creative specialists liaising directly with the consumer – where the designer is the maker and the store is the workshop. With the evolution of mass production, this once unified marketplace typology has fragmented and dispersed to where manufacturing no longer lies within the consumer’s grasp. A rich historic urban architecture has been supplanted by a distant scattering of industrial warehouses and faceless high street facades. The emergence of innovative new methods of designing and making has presented an opportunity to once again close the gap between production and the consumer interface. Imagine a new architectural typology – an innovative urban marketplace that bridges the current disparity between production, consumerism and public space. It looks to explore the way in which architecture conveys emerging innovative technologies; the way manufacturing is displayed and perceived; and the relationships it has with those who engage with it. Using a local catalyst site, the research puts forward a solution as a socially and contextually relevant node within the city of Wellington, New Zealand. Architectural ideas are iteratively tested alongside a set of typological strategies – each informing the other. Throughout this process, the research seeks to understand and stitch together the many complex conditions in which to provide an inviting, engaging, public consumer destination. This is a high-tech marketplace of sorts – a new architecture for a new era of industry.</p>

Bespoke Urban Factory

<p>A change in consumer values has resulted in the traditional factory becoming outdated and out of touch. The ever-changing rapid and exponential development in high-tech manufacturing technologies is enabling humankind to realise products and efficiencies never conceived of until recently. Mass production is a thing of the past. People want options – bespoke products and services with the ease and precision of a well-articulated assembly line. The consumer wants to understand the process, production practises and effects of the choices they make. Since the emergence of the city itself, the public marketplace has been a critical node for urban vitality and liveliness – an assemblage of skilled creative specialists liaising directly with the consumer – where the designer is the maker and the store is the workshop. With the evolution of mass production, this once unified marketplace typology has fragmented and dispersed to where manufacturing no longer lies within the consumer’s grasp. A rich historic urban architecture has been supplanted by a distant scattering of industrial warehouses and faceless high street facades. The emergence of innovative new methods of designing and making has presented an opportunity to once again close the gap between production and the consumer interface. Imagine a new architectural typology – an innovative urban marketplace that bridges the current disparity between production, consumerism and public space. It looks to explore the way in which architecture conveys emerging innovative technologies; the way manufacturing is displayed and perceived; and the relationships it has with those who engage with it. Using a local catalyst site, the research puts forward a solution as a socially and contextually relevant node within the city of Wellington, New Zealand. Architectural ideas are iteratively tested alongside a set of typological strategies – each informing the other. Throughout this process, the research seeks to understand and stitch together the many complex conditions in which to provide an inviting, engaging, public consumer destination. This is a high-tech marketplace of sorts – a new architecture for a new era of industry.</p>

Diagrams in Architecture: An Examination of Diagram Based Design Methods in Contemporary Urban Architecture Projects

<p>This research explores the relationship between the use of diagrams in architectural production and an architectural outcome which redefines conventional relationships between urban built form and open space. Several prominent architecture practices whose design methodologies are based extensively on diagrams produce architectural outcomes which relate to their surrounding physical context in unusual ways, presenting alternative solutions to conventional urban design principles and representing an emerging trend in urban design. A variety diagram types are utilised in different ways in the design processes of these key 'diagrammatic' practices. Design proposals responding to the same brief examine the architectural and urban design outcomes of different types of diagram use. Two different diagrammatic design methodologies are executed, producing two design proposals for a complex mixed use development in central Wellington. Each diagrammatic design methodology has different implications for the relationships between built form and open space by emphasising different factors in the design process and progressing differently from diagram into built form. One method emphasises continuity and connection, thereby minimising the typical distinctions between built form and open space. The other method emphasises a strict functional logic to produce unusual programmatic organisations which create ambiguity between the building's inside and outside. Instrumentalising diagrams in the design process aids in the management of the project's complexities, allows the design to develop in an abstract manner, and presents the often unusual design outcomes on the basis of an underlying functional logic, thereby providing a significant contribution to the realisation of new architectural and urban design solutions.</p>

Diagrams in Architecture: An Examination of Diagram Based Design Methods in Contemporary Urban Architecture Projects

<p>This research explores the relationship between the use of diagrams in architectural production and an architectural outcome which redefines conventional relationships between urban built form and open space. Several prominent architecture practices whose design methodologies are based extensively on diagrams produce architectural outcomes which relate to their surrounding physical context in unusual ways, presenting alternative solutions to conventional urban design principles and representing an emerging trend in urban design. A variety diagram types are utilised in different ways in the design processes of these key 'diagrammatic' practices. Design proposals responding to the same brief examine the architectural and urban design outcomes of different types of diagram use. Two different diagrammatic design methodologies are executed, producing two design proposals for a complex mixed use development in central Wellington. Each diagrammatic design methodology has different implications for the relationships between built form and open space by emphasising different factors in the design process and progressing differently from diagram into built form. One method emphasises continuity and connection, thereby minimising the typical distinctions between built form and open space. The other method emphasises a strict functional logic to produce unusual programmatic organisations which create ambiguity between the building's inside and outside. Instrumentalising diagrams in the design process aids in the management of the project's complexities, allows the design to develop in an abstract manner, and presents the often unusual design outcomes on the basis of an underlying functional logic, thereby providing a significant contribution to the realisation of new architectural and urban design solutions.</p>

Tūrangawaewae | A place to stand

<p><b>The landscape concealed beneath the concrete surfaces of our cities is replete with heritage stories representing the transformative evolution of the land, our culture and our ever-evolving society. The architecture upon these urban landscapes, however, is often only challenged to represent an architectural style (aesthetic), function (programme) or a public mask (branding) of the building. As a result, architecture tends to neglect the evolving identity of its context, allowing the stories of the site’s heritage to become lost beneath the growing layers of urban development. This thesis asks:How can urban architecture help to reawaken the transformative heritage stories that form place identity, enabling architecture as well as its inhabitants to have a place to stand | tūrangawaewae?</b></p> <p>Place identity for Māori is embodied in the concept of tūrangawaewae––a place to stand. For Māori, the place where a person learns important life lessons and feels a connection with their ancestors is usually the marae. In this place they have earned the right to stand up and make their voices heard. In this place they are empowered and connected to both the land and to one another. Tūrangawaewae––a place to stand––embodies the fundamental concept of our connection to place (“Papatūānuku – the land”). The research site selected to explore this question is the urban area in and around Te Aro Park in central Wellington, which was once the site of Te Aro Pā. This site provides the thesis with a rich polyvalent layering of stories, interweaving landscape heritage, Māori heritage and colonial heritage within a single architectural context. This thesis is framed as an ‘allegorical architectural project’, which is defined by Penelope Haralambidou as a critical method for architectural design research that is often characterised by speculative architectural drawing. The allegorical architectural project integrates design and text to critically reflect on architecture in relation to topics such as art, science and politics (Haralambidou, “The Fall”, 225).</p> <p>The design-led research investigation explores how an allegorical architectural project can help to enable urban architecture to reawaken the transformative heritage stories that form place identity—utilising speculative architectural drawing as a fundamental tool for enabling architecture as well as its inhabitants to manifest a sense of belonging. The thesis proposes an allegorical architectural project as a research vehicle through which place identity can be challenged and fulfilled. By positioning an architectural intervention and its context within a dialectic confrontation, it examines how an allegorical architectural project can represent and communicate the temporal and multi-layered nature of place identity within a static architectural outcome.</p> <p>By reconnecting architecture with site, and interpreting this connection allegorically within the design process, this thesis investigates how architecture can allegorically become the living inhabitant of a site, where the site itself gives architecture its tūrangawaewae, a place to stand.</p>