Week Two

The first briefs are related to Massey University's Block 1 and Wairepo Lagoon.

Guest Lecture - Whairepo Lagoon

• Help people become more aware of the name and its meaning (without creating a sign)
• Develop a means to mark and direct significant places on the waterfront
• Help bring the name 'Whairepo' into the everyday
• Te Reo Maori - increase the use of the language
• Temporary factor - chalk stencils + interactive (elements got children involved)

This project needs to inform a wider palette of story telling and naming along the waterfront that includes:

• Place making, culture, storytelling (create a narrative)
• It may be permanent, it may be there for an hour, a day, it make come and go at random
• Maintaining the minimal, commercial signage that the Wellington Waterfront currently features

Guest Lecture - Block 1 Massey University

• Built in 1970's
• Financial reasons meant the original designs for the main entrance of Block 1 could not happen
• Current entrance isn't architecturally framed
• Separate entrances for staff space and main entrance for block 1 entrance
• Infrastructure, landscape and comfort - could make campus more welcoming
• Maori names - bilingual 
• Signage inside are similar to block 12
• Staff space - Te Where Pukaka
• School of Music and Creative Media - Te Rewa O Puanga

Universities didn't used to encourage students to stay on campus - so the architecture only catered for lectures and tutorials - were expected to go home for study. Now universities are changing to accommodate for better way finding and the identification of buildings and comfort in terms of spaces for study. What they want:

• Putting Block 1 on the map
• Way showing system for inside is in development to bring together elements from Te Where Pukaka and Te Are Hihiko (Block 12)
• Under utilised entry way - link the building to the wider campus
• Client - students (we are closer to the people engaging with this space)

In class exercise

We were put into groups and assigned one of the two briefs. I was assigned to Block 1 in a group of four. We started to think about:

• How to assess the site - go there, take photos, ask people who use the space, observe people in the space
• What info we need to collect - how people access the building, who accesses the building (what do they want to know), how people interact with the building, foot traffic, where the foot traffic is, architecture of the building, how the school of music and CMP functions, measurements
• The problem - people walk passed the entrance  don't realise it's an entrance, people walk into the staff space, people don't realise it's part of Massey Campus or that it's the Music and Creative Media Production building, the building is old and unappealing
• The good precedents - Block 12 - big, orange stencil letterforms 

Ideas:

• Use different materials and colours - to tell a different story
• Treating the building as an instrument
• Relationship between lighting and sound (music)
• Inside Block 1 - Doctorin font is being used in red
• Budget? Lack of so be realistic
• May - open to public so be realistic