Mangroves - reclaiming land

See this image ... white is sand that was there in 1940, then the mangroves progressively take over (created from historial aerial pictures of Norana Park 1940, 1996, 2006, 2010)

Mid Semester Crit - Site Plan Feedback

 

Feedback (Albert)

• 'almost cracked the layout' - ideally this project will work especially with respect to the focus on the local community and their part
• by having the atea space as a kind of 'mediator' between the ancient world and the world of the 'magicians' out there in the water is a nice way to have it - 'I like the way they are kind of polar - the world of the ancestors and this other world out here in the water, making stuff - I think its a nice thing'. It's almost  like an anchoring here (ie. the atea is the anchor)
• I think you're being very sensitive about those issues (ie. comments above)
• I almost see this as a solid block around here and you build on top (the section showing atea wall with voids)
• the theatre building will be visible from the bridge so you have to design it with that condition in mind, an almost iconic building, stuck out in the water
• the building is this becon thing that does not just speak about the people within it but also has a dialogue with all the inlet, the surroundings
• 'iconic architecture'

Feedback (Rewi)

• I wouldn't have the marae directly facing the front of the theater building
• I'd frame it differently, perhaps theatre building somehow allows a connection to the greater landscape or being some kind of gateway instead
• eg. you'd never have the church and town hall facing each other in any European square
• relationship between the marae and theatre very important - at the moment they seem to have a confronting relationship
• perhaps move the theatre around a little so not directly in front, or the theatre building allows a connection to the inlet, is some kind of gateway
• at the moment they're just aligned along an axis - need to think more about what you'll see when you're in the marae
• the performance space should be more incorporated somehow in the marae - at the moment it seems too separate
• (TINA) Lemi will probably want to use the wharenui and marae space in conjunction with the performance space...I can see the reasons you want to keep them separate but there has to be a juncture, more of a connection somehow - the relationship between these 2 buildings (wharenui, performance space)
• the atae space could also be used as a performance space

Feedback (Albert)

• perhaps build up the site so the wharenui is up higher and almost looks down on the performance centre
• arrival will be important, esp as the performance centre is sitting out in the water. I think you have the split in the main paths too early,
• will need to choreograph this entrance quite carefully, perhaps with contrasts - open, threshold etc

Feedback (Tina)

• the site plan is more open to possibilities than the section
• I have a prejudice against iconic buildings as they often have no relationship with the site
• the marae seems almost dwarfed by the performance centre
• (ALBERT) another way of looking at it is that both buildings are a kind of theatre - different kinds:
• wharenui is cave-like then there is a progression up to the performance fly tower which builds the magic for that space.
• Strip it down, both are theatres, but in different kinds of worlds.
• So how do you heighten these 2 conditions, worlds, then there is the open space in the middle.
• The theatre should be something more magical.

Feedback (Mystery Man)

• metamorphosis from the idea to the expression should be clearer
• something organic that should grow out of the site

 

 

 

 



Internalising the landscape

Concepts from surrounding landscape:

Examples include the Phaeno Science Centre,...

• Contours of the surrounding positive and negative spaces will translate into internal spaces for the performance centre.
  

Bridge ideas

Onepoto Bridge

Maribor Bridge

Back to Mangroves

Main concepts to take from mangroves:

1. reclaiming land
2. blurring boundaries between land & sea
3. size dependant on water qualities - salinity, nutrients
4. transparent, clear view through bottom level (eg. trunks) but opaque/layered/sheltering at upper levels
5. reflective lower levels or undersides

 

 

 

For examples of (5), see the Maribor footbridge example (copper plates)

or the soffit of the exhibition space of the Porsche Museum (Panels, stainless steel, polished, No. 7 finish; Delugan Meissl Architects)

 

or the Barcelona, Edificio Forum, Plaza (Herzog & De Meuron)
or UNIL, Géopolis, University Building, (Facade, Stainless Steel Panel, Fragmented Mirror Image. General Contractor Baumag, Curtain Wall Producer Sottas, Panel Surface EXYD)

 

Diagrams - performance centre phase I

First attempt of many...

 

Looking a little like that opera house in Sydney, inadvertently...or sails...meant to be slabs of rock with fissures.

Materials

Concrete, stone
Carved out of the site, perhaps also rammed earth (do research)

See Fernando Menis work (Menis Studio), for example his Holy Redeemer Church Iglesia del Santísimo Redentor
http://www.menis.es/holy-redeemer-church/
http://www.menis.es/proyectos/#cultural

A big entrance ramp surrounds and swings around the building in order to give access to the square and the first floor of the church. Large independent rocks (big concrete volumes), characterize the whole project. The spaces between these rocks turn into “patios” with natural light and ventilation.
“When entering into the church, the feeling of coming from the darkness to the light is experienced, I mean, from death to life.
The concrete had volcanic chip added to provide a rougher surface, thereby providing a greater degree of sound absorption compared with normal concrete.

Materials - exterior cladding, wood slats, brick

See this link (for the pine slat exterior)
http://www.archdaily.com/360605/the-green-pine-garden-scenic-architecture/
and this one
http://www.archello.com/en/project/garden-studio

Research - Textures, Materials

Like flax/palm leaves.
Wooden slats as a rain screen over concrete and glass - looking through the glass will give feeling of being in the bush, a difuse view outside.
All structures will have this in some shape or form to give a coherent flow between them.

Similar to my favourite NZ house, the Pohutukawa House by Herbst Architects

Materials

Qualities:

• Solid, like they've been there forever such as stone, concrete, rammed earth
• Able to weather and change over time such as corten steel, copper, but also any natural material - particularly if in the harbour, showing tide marks, algae growth...

Malae space:

• Sand or gravel for marae/malae space to show imprints of past events, footprints etc

Contrasts of heavey and light, for example concrete/rammed earth and glass or wood slats

Imprinted concrete - eg. site contours. Experiment with this.

Form - Performance centre, holes in rocks

Qualities:

• feeling of weight above
• solidity
• carved out of rock by sea and/or wind

http://architecturalmoleskine.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/tadao-ando-maritime-museum-abu-dhabi.html

Ando's Maritime Museum

Samoan Tattoo

Project relevance - Va, tattoo the site, tatto the building - text on the buildings etc..

See this text by Albert Wendt on Tattooing ' "Tatuaing the Post Colonial Body":
http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/authors/wendt/tatauing.asp

The tattoo or tatua = pe'a because of its charcoal dark colour, the colour of the flying fox.

"I'm sure that one of the reasons why we're fascinated with tattooing is because it is to do with blood, human blood, with deliberately bleeding the body...
In a deep psychological, mythological, symbolic way, tatauing is the act of printing/scripting a genealogical/spiritual/philosophical text on the blood of testing to see if it can bear the pain of being in a human, of storying it, giving it human design, shape, form, identity, yet risking all of that if the tatauing results in your bleeding to death or your contracting AIDS.
Our words for blood are toto, eleele, and palapala...also our terms for earth/soil/mud/earth.  We are therefore made of earth/soil.  Our blood, which keeps us alive, is earth.  So when you are tatauing the blood, the self, you are re-connecting it to the earth, re-affirming that you are earth, genetically and genealogically.
This may help explain why despite the enormous fear of AIDS, tattooing never stopped.  Undergoing the tatau is challenging death, risking it."

"What is the Post-Colonial Body? It is a body 'becoming,' defining itself, clearing a space for itself among and alongside other bodies...By giving it a Samoan tatau, what am I doing, saying? I'm saying it is a body coming out of the Pacific, not a body being imposed on the Pacific. It is a blend, a new development...a blend in which influences from outside...have been indigenised, absorbed in the image of the local and national, and in turn have altered the national and local."

Tatua & Va

(from Albert Wendt's essay above)

Va = the space between, the betweenness, not empty space, not space that separates but space that relates, that holds separate entities and things together in the Unity-that-is-All, the space that is context, giving meaning to things.

• The meanings change as the relationships/the contexts change. A well-kown Samoan expression is 'Ia teu le va.' Cherish/nurse/care for the va, the relationships. This is crucial in communal cultures that value group, unity, more than individualism: who perceive the individual person/creature/thing in terms of group, in terms of va, relationships.
• Other terms:
• manava = mana/va = stomach (mana = power, va = space)
• manava = breathe
• vasa = ocean (va - space; sa - forbidden/sacred)
• vanimonimo = space that-appears-and-disappears

So tatauing is part of everything else that is the people, the aiga, the village, the community, the environment, the atua, the cosmos. It is a way of life that relates the tufuga ta tatau to the person being tataued and their community and history and beliefs to do with service, courage, masculinity, femininity, gender, identity, sexuality, beauty, symmetry, balance, aptness, and other art forms and the future because a tatau or a malu is for the rest of your life and when you die your children will inherit its reputation and stories, your stories, stories about you and your relationships.

The tatau and the malu (women's tattoo)  are not just beautiful decoration, they are scripts/texts/testimonies to do with relationships, order, form. When they were threatened with extinction by colonialism, Samoa was one of the few places where tatauing refused to die.
Thus, tatau became defiant texts/scripts of nationalism and identity.

Samoan Material Culture (Te Rangi Hiroa  (P. H. Buck)

 http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BucSamo-t1-front1-tp1.html

By virtue of his occupation, the tattoo artist ranks with builders as the companion of kings (angai o tupu).

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BucSamo-t1-body1-d15-d2-d3.html

Previously. custom, personal status, and the approbation of men and women were the incentives to undergoing tattoo.
In modern times, approbation is still sought. The fear of pain is overcome by the keen desire to bear the marks of manhood and to be able to hitch the kilts a little higher at the evening dances and so demonstrate superiority over the untattooed. As maturity follows and the young man succeeds to the position of matai (chief), he has the satisfaction of feeling that he is truly one of the elect for he can bare his knees with assurance as he sits cross legged before his wall post in the circle of the titled.

Tattooing did servie as a decorative purpose - areas that receive more attention are those more likely to meet the eye.

• of the thigh areas described, the upper and external parts are the least artistic while the lower front, inner, and back parts receive considerable attention in the use of various motifs.
• the darker upper area is covered by the kilt but that in sitting cross-legged in the kava circle and meetings with the kilts tucked up to free the knees, the lower anterior and inner surfaces of the thighs with the belt and bird's-head areas were well exposed. Good tattooing had thus an excellent chance of being displayed and admired.
• The Trochus (shell) triangles and the atingi vae were seen from the back and the common habit of wearing the kilt short at the back appears to originate from the natural vanity of displaying the decoration of those areas.
• Pubic area - 'punialo' The aso fa'aifo lines descend to terminate or form the boundaries of the back patterns when produced forward. They descend towards the pubis on either side. The middle part of the abdomen between the descending lines is the alo or belly. The tattooed triangle base upwards is put in to close (puni) the (alo) space and hence the name of puni alo. From its name, the punialo was probably at one time always filled in last of the important areas but later became used as a primary endurance test.

The tattooing was finished with a mark made over the navel (pute) which showed that the work was done. to the patient it was the symbol of endurance and manhood, for no youth gets the navel mark until his full tattooing is completed.

Women - The tattooing artists formed an influential guild in their day. The patron deities of the craft were Taenia and Tilafainga. In the myth recorded by Fraser, these deities were Siamese twins from Manua who went from Tutuila to Fiji. There they became friends with two tattooing artists named Tufou and Filelei from whom they obtained tattooing instruments as well, evidently, as a knowledge of the craft. These women returned to Falealupo in Savaii where Tilafainga became the war goddess Nafanua. Taema swam back to Tutuila where she settled down at Poloa and followed the occupation of tattooing. In the land of Tufou and Filelei, it was the custom to tattoo the women and not the men. Taema kept repeating this during her swim, but ended up by getting the order reversed. Hence her song on arrival at Tutuila was:

Tupu le tane, ta le tatau.

When a male grows up, tattoo him.
Tupu fafine, fanafanau.

When a woman grows up, let her bear children.

See also a review of Mark Adams exhibition of photographs
http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/webdav/site/arts/shared/Departments/asian-studies/gjaps/docs-vol4-n02/Skrine-Review-vol4-2.pdf

Form - ancient circular structures

Stonehenge...