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Sensing space: Designing for well-being in the urban environment
No full textUrbanisation is a rapidly growing global trend. As cities expand, urban environments contribute to increased stress and sensory overload, challenges are likely to worsen. Research highlights a need for spaces of tranquillity and silence. This thesis investigates how architecture can address these issues through atmospheric, therapeutic, and biophilic design strategies. Drawing from the works of Gernot Böhme, Mark Wigley, Peter Zumthor, and Juhani Pallasmaa, the research explores how atmosphere shapes sensory perception, emotional engagement, and psychological responses to space. Therapeutic architecture, particularly the use of water for its sensory and healing benefits, supports physical, mental, and emotional health.The design process involved maquettes, case studies, site and program analysis, collages, and drawings, identifying strengths and limitations while refining spatial atmospheres. Reflection revealed biophilic design as another strategy, addressing the human need for connection to nature. Research into Chinese gardens and the 14 patterns of biophilic design informed the integration of natural elements, bridging gaps in earlier phases.The outcome demonstrates how a holistic architectural approach—rooted in atmosphere, therapy, and biophilia—can mitigate the negative impacts of urbanisation, enhancing urban well-being.</p
Gradation at a ludic edge
No full textIn the immediate post-earthquake period, the Christchurch community strove to create spaces of social interaction through installations at the city edge. These installations aimed to inspire hope and improve the well-being of the devastated city through social interaction. Over the years, these spaces have disappeared, along with the aspects of social connection they had reawakened.This thesis explores how a design process—focusing on playful design methodologies and a gradation from private to public space—can reignite social interaction at the city edge. A primary focus on play initiated my research, while my second concept of gradation led me to consider a definition of cohousing as a potential solution.The objective of this project is to soften the boundary between the urban city zone and the residential zone, inspiring the social interaction that once thrived in the edge space bridging these areas. My design process was guided by a combination of research for design and research through design, resulting in two distinct iterations. I began with an investigation into my core concepts of play and gradation, a case study examination of interactive cohousing communities and an observational site analysis. This research was then developed through a variety of design methods, with collaging and playful material exploration serving as the main drivers for developing ideas and concepts.Following reflection on my first iteration, my methodologies were reconsidered. By examining specific case studies from the post-earthquake era in Christchurch and extracting design elements and techniques, refined maquettes were created that allowed a second iteration to emerge.The final design integrates a gradation of spaces, transitioning from the private interior of a house to busy streetscapes, with installations and design concepts generated through playful methodologies. These installations inspire interaction among all parts of the community in the area, functioning in equal value with the proposed dwellings. A modular system unites these concepts, creating harmony and softening the boundary between private residential spaces and the public city edge.</p
Maintaining a Critical Tradition of Situating Media within Wider Power Relations
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Feminist Housing
No full textThe stand-alone home has long been the prominent housing typology within New Zealand, catering to the ‘nuclear’ family and reinforcing outdated gender roles while isolating and excluding those who fail to conform. This gendering of spaces within the home persists to this day, allowing the argument that the built environment continues to reinforce the values of the nuclear family, consistently confining women to the home and separating the private home from the public workplace. This boundary between public and private maintains a strict separation of productive and reproductive labour, reinforcing the exploitation and dismissal of domestic labour. The standalone home maintains the relationship between public and private and the separation of productive and reproductive, which actively upholds historical gender roles. Historically, gendered spaces within the home, such as the kitchen and laundry, have been placed furthest from public space, confined to the back of the house and hidden from public view. In response to the existing relationship between public and private within the home, this research aims to investigate and challenge this relationship within the home, centring around the question, “how can the relationship between public and private be challenged within residential architecture through a feminist lens?” The three design chapters within the research explore and challenge the relationship between public and private within residential architecture at increasing scales. Each design chapter uses feminist theory and methodologies to question the existing dynamics and gender biases within residential architecture, investigating this through an installation, residential alteration and co-housing brief. This thesis uses a “researchthrough- design approach”, applying feminist theory and a speculative design approach to challenge the relationship between public and private within residential architecture. An iterative and reflective approach to design has been used throughout the design chapters, using methods including scaling, collage and superimposition to challenge the relationship between public and private at varying levels of complexity. The conclusion of this thesis will outline the methods and architectural interventions employed within each design chapter, summarising how the relationship between public and private was challenged within each design chapter.</p
Biomimetic Modular Architecture: Bird Swarming Dynamics in Disaster Relief Structures
No full textIn the face of increasing natural disasters, the need for efficient and adaptable disaster relief shelters has significantly grown. The growing frequency and intensity of these disasters poses significant challenges to communities around the world, often resulting in damaged buildings and displacement of people. Traditional approaches to disaster relief architecture often struggle to provide efficient solutions and meet demand due to their centralised and static nature. Addressing these challenges requires innovative approaches that can respond and adapt to extremely dynamic environmental conditions. This thesis experiments with one such approach: it investigates the integration of biomimicry with modular architecture, focusing on the behavioural principles derived from bird swarming and how this could inform disaster relief shelters. The research is speculative, and explores how bird swarm dynamics, in bird’s response to immediate threats, can inform a disaster responsive and adaptive architecture. By drawing inspiration from bird swarm principles, the research explores how swarming could benefit modular architecture and inform the development of responsive and adaptive architectural solutions within the context of New Zealand. The research analyses bird swarm behaviour, identifying key principles that can be adapted in an architectural framework. These principles consist of things such as adaptive responsive cues, self-organisation and decentralised decision-making processes. The research translates the key principles into designs strategies,which are tested throughout the design process stages.By allowing bird swarm behaviour to inform modular architecture, the thesis aims to propose speculative design ideas that optimise adaptability, flexibility and scalability. This incorporation of biomimicry in design provides opportunities to understand disaster responses in new ways, informing innovative and responsive architectures that benefit disaster prone areas. A series of literature reviews and case studies were conducted to gain an understanding of how biomimicry can be applied to architecture, focusing on bird swarm methods and how they could inform the overall design process and outcome. Through an iterative design process and digital modelling, the thesis aims to define how bird swarm strategies could be used to inform responsive modular architecture.</p
Special Issue Queer in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Research, Theory and Practice
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Open access: Māori perspectives on publishing
No full textIntroduction. This short paper presents the results of a project that looked at Māori researchers’ attitudes to open access publishing. It presents an overview of their engagement with green and gold publishing options, including barriers and challenges they encountered when considering open access publishing and the role that Māori liaison librarians have in encouraging Māori academics to utilize the range of open access resource opportunities available.
Method. In this study, six Māori researchers and four Māori liaison librarians were interviewed using a kaupapa Māori methodological approach.
Results. The results were analysed using a tikanga Māori focused lens
Conclusions. Although the Māori researchers in this study are aware of open access publishing, they were unsure of how to distinguish between the different models on offer and would benefit from regular engagement and advice from Māori liaison librarians
The Whare in the Urban Bush
No full textThis thesis explores the concept of atmospheric detailing in architecture, examining how specific design elements can influence our sensory and emotional experiences within the built environment. Atmospheric detailing refers to the careful selection and manipulation of materials, textures, lighting, and form to evoke particular moods and atmospheres. Through a combination of theoretical analysis, case studies, and design experiments, this research analyzes the role atmospheric detailing plays in architecture. The investigation focuses on how architectural details contribute to atmospheric qualities, seeking to understand their eventual impact on atmospheric perception. This is finally tested in the design of the atmosphere of a backcountry hut in urban context. By developing a framework for atmospheric detailing, this thesis aims to provide architects and designers with not only practical guidelines for detailing spaces that exude specific atmosphere/s, but also an ontology from which further details might be atmospherically deconstructed, measured and classified. The findings of this research will contribute to a deeper understanding of how atmosphere can be intentionally crafted through detailing, emphasizing the importance of tuning architectural space in shaping our atmospheric perception.</p
Doubling Down
No full textFood is a powerful force in shaping social, economic, and environmental dynamics, offering a transformative lens to address urban challenges such as economic development, community cohesion, and social resilience. Centred on Havelock North in Hawkes Bay, Aotearoa New Zealand—a region renowned for its food and wine—this thesis explores alternative forms of urbanism which are grounded in food systems, asking: ‘What sort of urbanism could food produce here? What architecture makes up that urbanism? How does that architecture support this particular kind of urbanism?’ Through the conception of “agri-urbanism,” I propose a framework in which food production, distribution, and consumption are expressed in the urban fabric. While case studies of urban agriculture, food markets, and community hubs provide a broad foundation, the analysis focuses on Havelock North, offering site-specific insights into practical, cultural, architectural, and planning interventions. As the creative driver of this new urban paradigm, I employ design-led research to explore the relationships between the plains, foothills, rivers, and the village of Havelock North and its surroundings to embed food systems into urban design. While acknowledging the contributions of related disciplines such as landscape architecture and urban design, my approach focuses on architecture as a direct response to the unique socio-economic, horticultural, agricultural, cultural and environmental conditions of Hawkes Bay.This work not only theorises but also demonstrates how Havelock North’s unique context—its existing village character, connection to the Tukituki River, the hill above Te Awanga, the foothills of Te Mata Peak, and the Heretaunga Plains—can serve as a foundation for reimagining urban development through the expression of food, which links us so strongly to our environment. By leveraging these specific geographical and cultural landscapes, my findings articulate a model of urbanism that gives form to the growing, harvesting, storing, and production of food, extending beyond the current global emphasis on consumption. This approach integrates food systems into the fabric of Havelock North and the wider Hawke’s Bay region, establishing food as a pivotal driver of a more resilient and dynamic future cities and towns.</p
Nano/Micro-Particles and Composites with Special Dichroic Properties
No full textOne of the most famous examples of the use of metallic nanoparticles to provide colour to a bulk material is the glass Lycurgus Cup, dated to the 4th century A.D., which appears red in transmitted light (when lit from within) but green in reflected light (when lit from outside). This dependence of colour on the direction of the light source has become known as the dichroic effect. In the Lycurgus Cup, these colours have been attributed to gold/silver/copper alloy nanoparticles 50-100 nm in size. Despite the dichroic effect being observed in metallic nanoparticles since then, the relationship between the observation of the dichroic effect and the size, shape, and composition of the particles has been poorly understood. The presented research aimed to deduce what features are necessary to observe the dichroic effect, leading to improved control of the effect and the ability to utilise it. Four syntheses of gold nanoparticles that displayed the dichroic effect have been developed. Full characterisation of the resulting particles combined with theoretical studies of their interaction with light has enabled connections to be made between particle features and the colours observed. The final synthesis of highly monodisperse dichroic gold nanoparticles has proven conclusively that particle size is fundamentally responsible for the observation of the dichroic effect in gold nanoparticles. A thorough literature review indicates that the dichroic effect has not been reported in non-metallic particles before, however this research programme has advanced beyond gold nanoparticles to synthesise non-metallic copper(I) oxide microparticles that display the dichroic effect in clean and attractive colours. This has proven that the localised surface plasmon resonance phenomenon responsible for metallic nanoparticle colour is not a requirement for the observation of the dichroic effect. This section of research has included the development of a highly novel methodology that reproducibly synthesises monodisperse copper(I) oxide microparticles with excellent size control. The characterisation of these particles, combined with theoretical results, has again indicated that size is the most important contributing factor to the observation of the dichroic effect. The developed understanding of the parameters required to observe the dichroic effect has enabled the synthesis of dichroic nano/micro-particles in a range of different colours. The presented research has proceeded to incorporate both gold and copper(I) oxide particles into polymer systems with complete retention of the dichroic effect, effectively encapsulating it in the solid state. The production of these dichroic composite materials has important potential applications in security and design.</p
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