Urbanism 5 March, 2009
Exclusive offer for Urbis Designday participants at The Westin Auckland Lighter Quay.
A design statement in its own right, The Westin Auckland, invites you to replenish your spirit with divine drinks and a sublime environment.
The Replenish Package includes luxurious overnight accommodation, buffet breakfast for two, a cocktail each on arrival, plus valet parking. Priced from $325 per night.*
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For more information or to make a reservation, please email reservations.auckland@westin.com or call +649 909 9000.
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Remember that Urbis Designday is on Saturday 28th March from 10am – 5pm at nine central Auckland showrooms. Guests must pre-register online and pay $20 to receive their Designday Pass which covers entry to the showrooms and complimentary transport on the day.
>>Visit www.urbismagazine.com/designday/registration/
Editor’s Blog
People become so much less bothersome once you meet them. When they are just a signature at the tail of an email, or a dismembered voice on the phone, or even worse, someone you have never even spoken to but are still a barricade to something you would like to do, it is easy to disparage this phantom-person.
And yet, when you meet them, they often turn out to be alright. Such was the case when I went to a spectacular dinner put on by an American couple who own LIMN, a group of design furniture stores in California. They had recently moved here, setting up Pine Valley Bed and Breakfast in Silverdale. Dinner was inside a glasshouse, each piece shipped from Texas, and Paola Navone, the Italian furniture designer, was cooking dinner for the wonderfully odd collection of people. Inside the glasshouse, over thick slabs of tiramisu, I met the owners of the Mai Mai House.
Now, the Mai Mai house is a house designed by Auckland architect Andrew Paterson. It was short listed for the residential category at the World Architecture Festival and earlier won a national architecture award. The house is small, but stunning. I have seen photos of it. Hardly anyone else has. You see, the owners won’t publish. A pesky wee thorn in my side. The reason, has always been privacy. This, I grudgingly accede is fair enough. Frustrating, from an editor’s point of view, but an occasional hindrance for architectural houses.
What I wasn’t expecting was that this woman, who had previously been an unseen annoyance, was fascinating. And her reason not to publish, rather than privacy, was to retain the integrity of the design concept. Now how many clients believe in their architects vision so much that they end up seeing it more clearly that their architect? I’ll tell you: not many. Patterson designed this house, a petite, two-storied perch in Ponsonby, the blank front façade pressed with feathers, and called it Mai Mai House. He shot himself in the foot here. Evocative name. But a name that has inevitably crushed his plans for showing it off.
A Mai Mai is a hideaway, and this house is designed to be just that: a hideaway for a busy couple. To publish, to rip away the side of the Mai Mai and show it off undoes the entire concept. This may seem like PR spin, but she was neither a shy woman, nor particularly private. Rather, she was fiercely intelligent. This is a woman who enrolled herself in a construction course at the architecture school so she wouldn’t have the wool pulled over her eyes while her house was built. And once all the building dust settled, Patterson’s concept built, it is she and her husband that have valued the deeper meaning behind a piece of architecture, and reminded me that the importance of architecture is much more than a few pretty pictures. Nicole Stock
*Package and upgrade subject to available and valid until 30 Dec 09. Price is based on seasonal rates and may increase during peak periods. Not valid with any other promotion. Terms and Conditions apply.
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