Modelling the power of collaboration: The Aotearoa Festival of Architecture
Throughout September the NZIA's Aotearoa Festival of Architecture has offered a variety-filled platform for many kinds of collaborations.
Coordinated across its eight branches, the 2025 season of festival events again delivered the opportunity to look behind the scenes, be that visiting open studios held in Auckland and Wellington, or visits to individual buildings and significant architecture - in Wellington for example the Living Building Challenge of Ngā Mokopuna and the much anticipated new central library Te Matapihi.
Staying in the capital, the Wellington branch of Tuia Pito Ora NZ Institute of Landscape Architecture gained a place on the programme through the panel discussion Ngā Tohunga Wai Āwhā (as featured on LAA on 4 September). Representing NZILA, Sophie Jacques (WAM) was also instrumental - along with NZIA’s Hamish Parbhu of Jasmax and Nick Kapica of the Society for Experiential Graphic Design - in the staging of an exhibition titled ‘Models & the City’ at the generously provided John Mills Studio space in Garrett Street.
Graphic design by Nick Kapica. Photos from Sophie Jacques.
Sophie says the interest shown from students in the 20+ building models, many of them in fact unbuilt versions of iconic Wellington landmarks, was “great to see”. Students had a special preview evening arranged, and some took up a temporary opportunity to work for a fortnight from the space.
More indications of the energy that has given rise to this collaborative initiative can be seen on Instagram at @andthecity.wlg and for more snapshots from ‘Models & The City’ scroll down to the image gallery at the foot of this article.
The A+W NZ Wiki project is another ongoing project of growing interest that was highlighted during the festival. On Saturday 20 September people were invited to a journey into the University of Auckland Cultural Collections for a delve into archival material that reveals the stories of women in architecture followed by a collaborative Wikipedia edit-a-thon at AUT. Women currently make up only 20% of biographies on Wikipedia, and in 2022 there were just nine women listed under New Zealand women architects. This is changing.
Also thanks to Architecture + Women NZ popular screenings were held around the motu of City Dreamers, a Canadian documentary film focused on four prominent women architects - Phyllis Lambert, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, Cornelia Oberlander and Denise Scott Brown.
A festival of exhbitions
Exhibition happenings during the festival were certainly variety-filled.
In Ōtautahi Christchurch the Sir Miles Warren Gallery became the venue for a Made By Architects exhibition titled 'Creativity Beyond Buildings' with 27 exhibitors. Meanwhile in Whakatū Nelson a collaboration with Print Council Aotearoa New Zealand Te Tauihu members saw an artist-led exhibition and workshop takeover of an empty urban space to mount View Ports - (Re)Framing Local Perspectives paired with a place-making game for imagining the city’s future urban environment called Urban Prototype.
In Hawke’s Bay a collaboration with Fotofest showcased entries for a NZIA photography competition called ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ as well as work by photographer Ryan Jennings - also known as Mintface - at the Line Gallery. Jennings’ ‘Rivers and Roads’ collection is described as a show of his love for “the beauty of the natural environment coexisting with vital infrastructure”. In an interview for Hawke’s Bay TODAY the photographer said the display of his drone photography included bridges across the Tukituki River, the Tūtaekurī River, the Esk River, the Ngaruroro River, the Main Outfall of Ahuriri, the Taruarau River, the Mangaone River, the Pukekura River and the Waipawa River - some of which subsequently suffered damage in Cyclone Gabrielle. Jennings: “The unique part for me was that the location wasn’t actually the bridge, it was the river.”
A pecha kucha and pop-up exhibition titled 'Asia Kiwi Architects presents: Asia, Aotearoa, and the Architecture of Crisis' was scheduled to cap off events in Auckland at the Neon Theatre, while Unitec’s School of Architecture presented Woman as Maker, a selection of work from the past decade that demonstrated the drive and creativity of Unitec’s female ākonga and kaimahi in building and innovating. Visitors could engage with an interactive structure sponsored by Creality 3D Printers and, if they chose to, take home a 3D-printed shingle.
Speaker events and memorial lectures
The month has been well loaded with speaker events and memorial lectures that began with ‘City Talks: Ka mate, Ka ora, Whiti te rā!’ in Wellington, in which Helmut Modlik, CEO of Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira Inc joined with Alan Blundell, GM of Toa Developments, laid out Ngāti Toa's vision for building in Aotearoa.
Left: NZIA Wellington branch members Hamish Parbhu, Julie Cook and Tina Williams; Right: Helmut Modlik and Alan Blundell. (Photo credit: Stephen Olsen)
A listing of the overall line-up of speaker events during the Aotearoa Festival of Architrecture included:
In-person events to listen to Sarah Allan, the Chief Architect of the UK Government, share her expertise and experiences - coupled with panel discussions.
'fourth_space, beyond Architecture as a Narcissistic Entity' - a presentation by Steve Sinclair, co-founder and director of UK firm fourth_space, a practice seeking to rescue space to make places, to recycle bits of left-over architecture, and to make architecture as much of a unifying discipline as possible, inclusive of maintaining social and artistic concerns.
A tracing of the transformation of Avondale by a social housing development “from inception to occupation”- as seen through the eyes of Kainga Ora’s Jama Kake and Nick Howcroft, and of Severin Soder, Principal at Architectus.
Ian Moore delivering the Sir Ian Athfield Memorial Lecture by sharing insights into adaptive reuse with ‘The Past Needs a Future’.
The Peter Beaven Memorial Lecture in Christchurch featuring Kelly Clark, Architectus, and James Lunday, Common Ground Studio, talking to the topic of ‘Designing the Urban Fabric’ with Heather Blewett of Studio Blewett as moderator.
Delivery of the Ted McCoy Lecture in Dunedin by Jeremy Smith, Design Director at Irving Smith under the topic title of ‘Being finished is finished; Making Wood Matter.’
A talk scheduled for Sunday 28 September at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University about three homes designed by Sir Ian Athfield; one in Eastbourne, one in Mahina Bay and one in Havelock North.
Celebrated architect Francis Kéré. (Photo credit: Stephen Olsen)
In addition, the Futuna Lecture Series brought celebrated architect Francis Kéré, winner of the Aga Khan Award in 2004) and prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2022 (the first Africa-born architect to receive that honour), to Aotearoa. Some reflections on his talk in Wellington have been published on Scoop. One of the many projects to emerge from his Berlin-based architecture studio, Kéré Architecture, is the Centre des Cultures et Spiritualités Ewés in Togo.
the art of the walking tour
'Walk and talk' tours are another staple event for festivals such as the Festival of Architecture. In 2025 this included a heritage tour with Edwin Elliot in Queenstown, a tour of Pukeahu park with Ricky Prebble, Manatū Taonga senior historian, and in Napier Archi-Tours with the Art Deco Trust. Added to the variety of these were sketching 'walkshops'.
In Wellington there was even a helpful presentation by the non-profit team at Walk Tours NZ on how to create and run your own non-profit community walk tour. Sponsored by Pride this made a set of slides available as well as pointing to a 4-part audio podcast.
DEBATING HAMILTON’S GARDEN SPACE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR AUCKLAND
Closing out the Festival of Architecture for 2025, six panellists debated the controversial Garden Space in Hamilton on 25 September, while two teams of architects, engineers and social commentators face off to argue for and against the motion ‘AI would design Auckland better than us!’ in Auckland on Saturday 27 September.
A Model Photo Gallery
Editor’s note: For a landscape architecture take on models, a good article to read might be ‘Thinking with sections and models’ (2023) - sourced from the Landscape Architecture TU Delft blog.
Labels by Nick Kapica.