NZIA INSITU Conference

In February this year a group of Chow:Hill staff attended the NZIA 'Insitu' Conference held at Auckland's ANZ Viaduct Event Centre.

Registered Architect, Meagan Wrinch was in attendance and found there was a common theme over the range of presenters:

• Consideration of light direction of impact on a space
• Majority of speakers' work looked at history of the site as a starting point
• Both Alison Brooks and Barbara Bestor insist on the concept of "beauty"
• Another idea that came from Alison Brooks, Creative Director of Alison Brooks Architects, was "ideals rather than ideas" and the importance of authenticity, generosity, civilness and beauty.

Registered Architect Sam Thomas expressed interest in the following speakers' thoughts:

• Barbara Bestor: The use of artists and photographers to provide more tools in the expression of a space. This is often done with cost effective methods such as custom wallpaper
• John Wardle: Large scale, elegant designs that often delve into the history of the site or institution. Wardle said that looking into the history of a site can bring something special to the project that will add to both the architect's and client's experience of it.
• Todd Saunders: The importance of an elegant and casual workflow with lots of model making and form experimentation.

Sam also noted that overall there was a big push towards things being "crafted", crafted designs, crafted materiality and crafted workflow. This was an appealing idea, as it can add a huge amount of tactility to the end project.