Condoms and convoys in Auckland Architecture Week

Media release
29 September 2009

University of Auckland students use condoms and convoys in Auckland Architecture Week 2009

Auckland’s first ever “architecture convoy”, and a structure made out of 2500 condoms will feature as part of The University of Auckland’s contribution to the forthcoming Auckland Architecture Week 2009.

Auckland Architecture Week (11-18 October) is an annual celebration that includes exhibitions, movies and discussions covering a range of topics that fit broadly within the field of architecture and the built environment. Venues for activities are in and around the Auckland Central Business District.

One hundred and twenty students from The University of Auckland’s School of Architecture and Planning will compete in “TRANS-FoRM-ers”, a competition based on the design and fabrication of “mobile architectures”. Inspired by the question “How might design, architecture and art respond to the relentless fluidity of people, capital, data, ideas and commodity goods" the competing teams will creῡte forms that will comprise an architecture convoy thaῴ moves from Weῳtern Springs to Grey Lynn, Karangahape Road and Queen Sῴ.

Arriving at Shed 12 (90 Wellesley Street West), a main venue for Architecture Week, these mobile architectures will undergo transformation, revealing an interior that will be exhibited and experienced by the public. The projects, which are currently under construction, range across experimental materials and super scales, from giant silver vibrating balloons to collapsible cardboard towers.

“Construct” is another University of Auckland creation comprising 2500 condoms and made expressly for the launch of Auckland Architecture Week. Described as a “fun, modular, building system [that turns] the observer into the participant” the installation asks the public “Are YOU more creative than an architect?”

“This is an important project for the second year students. They are required to realise something at a large scale that they then must show in public—that requires them to be very resourceful. As a group initiative, they also need to become skilled at negotiation and collaboration, both useful skills in the training of an architeΰt, says Kathy Waghorn, a senior tutor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries (NICAI).

For more information on TRANS-FoRM-ers visit http://trans-form-ers.blogspot.com/ and http://www.architectureweek.co.nz/

For more information on “Construct” visit http://www.construct09.blogspot.com/)

For more information on Auckland Architecture Week visit http://architectureweek.co.nz/

The University of Auckland’s National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries comprises the School of Architecture and Planning, Elam School of Fine Arts, the Centre for New Zealand Art Research and Discovery (CNZARD), the School of Music and the Dance Studies Programme.

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