Te Hinaki - Urban Village
Design challenge response: Design a mixed use urban village for Christchurch New Zealand.
Starfish invited a core team of architects and industrial designers to spend 3 days in Whakatane New Zealand. The team were presented with the design brief, a large table, pens and paper. By day 3 we had developed the key elements that would lay the foundation for an urban space that managed to address cultural and environmental needs within a complex and challenging environment. Over a 6 week period we formed a consortium that covered every aspect of the construction requirement including growing and engineering key materials, and solutions to re-purpose waste material.
Update: This project has now received interest from another city with a strong Pacific Population. As the a testiment to good design reconfiguring the internal space creating significant issues was an early design requirement. People needs change, buildings should be able to adapt along with those needs.
For more information on this project please contact project manager Dave Smith
Rural based village development project
Unimpressed by suburban sprawl and ticky tacky boxes we have decided to develop our own series of rurally located villages. Using our collective skills and tools we have committed our focus to developing our village wiki and workshop series. Our whares (houses) will represent a partnership of traditional and contemporary design principles with a goal to increase awareness to tackle critical environmental, social and economic issues such as the rise of the use of persistently toxic chemicals, climate change, habitat loss, the collapse of domestic manufacture, and the lack of community distinctiveness. See our DESIGN PRINCIPLES page
