Balancing Art and Architecture: Matt Liggins' Inspiring Journey

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Join us for an invigorating conversation with the multifaceted Matt Liggins (Ngati Ruanui) as he shares his remarkable journey through the realms of architecture, art, and design. Matt dives into the exhilarating process of preparing for his TEDx presentation and the profound impact of forging relationships within New Zealand's art scene. We discuss the essential balance of isolation and interaction in the creative process, offering practical tips on staying organized and maintaining creativity amidst a flurry of projects. Matt's experiences and insights provide a captivating glimpse into the dynamic world of architectural and artistic innovation.

We unravel the story of building an affordable glass pavilion in Linton back in 2011. From the architectural nuances and budget constraints to the unique legislative differences between New Zealand and Australia, this episode is packed with personal anecdotes that highlight the challenges and triumphs of architectural design. We touch on the lifestyle contrasts across various New Zealand regions, sharing stories of surfing, weather conditions, and the camaraderie built through hands-on work in rural settings. This personal narrative paints a vivid picture of the architectural landscape and the heartfelt connections made along the way.

Wrapping up the episode, we delve into the complexities of designing large-scale art installations like the Euclidean Tower, exploring the collaborative efforts that bring these visions to life. We reflect on the challenges of medium-density housing design, advocating for simpler and more effective architectural approaches.  Matt's unique perspective on balancing work and creativity, combined with his profound appreciation for the artistic and architectural landscape, makes this episode a must-listen for anyone passionate about the arts.

Key Resources:

• https://www.mattliggins.com/
• https://tedxauckland.com/people/matt-liggins/
• @matt_liggins

Chapters:

• 0:00 - New Zealand Architecture, Design, Education
• 11:24 - Architecture, Design, and Personal Stories
• 18:52 - Creative Workflow and Personal Organization
• 28:39 - Geometry and Light
• 34:03 - Designing Sculptural Installations Through Drawing
• 46:40 - Balancing Work and Creativity
• 54:04 - Challenges in New Zealand Architecture
• 1:04:46 - Building Connections Through Podcast Conversations

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Episode Transcript

Gerard Dombroski (00:00):
Welcome back to the Design Principles Podcast
.
We're back at it with yourhosts, myself, gerard Dombrowski
, ben Sutherland and Sam Brown.
Just before we jump in, I justwant to throw out a real big
thanks to all you lovely humanbeings who have been listening
in.
We really, really do appreciateit and it's cool, it's amazing

(00:21):
that you guys listen in and,yeah, wow, crazy.
With that in mind, I just wantto say that, while we love to
discuss sort of architecturetopics ourselves, but we also
love to bring people in, like wehave been, and it's just cool,
I think, to give people in thearchitecture, design, art world

(00:44):
a little platform to discusstheir ideas, because I think
lots of you guys out there havewicked things going on.
There's a lot of meat out therein new zealand, I think, and
it's pretty cool to be able todiscuss so without further ado.
This week we have the man myth,the legend, matt liggins.
Matt has a multi-disciplinarylifestyle.
Matt Liggins, matt, has amultidisciplinary lifestyle.

(01:04):
I say lifestyle because it is,you know, a lifestyle rather
than a profession ofarchitecture, art and academia,
of which we will discuss herein.
Take it away, matty.

Sam Brown (01:30):
So, Matt, welcome.
It's good to have you on, mate.
Nice little pre-emptive chatwe've already had.

Gerard Dombroski (01:41):
Yeah it's good to meet you guys, eh, I
appreciate you coming on.

Matt Liggins (01:44):
I love this stuff, eh, I love just chatting about
your work and meeting new peopleand it's great.
New Zealand's a big place but asmall place, but you don't
often bum into people enough tohave a long good chat and record
it.
Eh, no, definitely not.

Sam Brown (02:00):
I saw in prep for the interview, I saw your little
TED Talk presentation that youdid.
How did that come about?
That was pretty cool.

Matt Liggins (02:07):
Yeah, one of those who you know things.

Sam Brown (02:10):
Yeah, nice.

Matt Liggins (02:11):
Yeah, so my mate, joe Michaels, the artist who
famously put the iceberg on themuseum, he's good mates with
Elliot Blade, who runs TEDx uphere.
Oh cool yeah, and we just hadsome beers at some pub and he's
chatting away and he goes oh you, what are you doing?
Oh, yeah, what are you doing?
And he said, and he waschatting away and he looked at

(02:31):
my work because, oh, youwouldn't mind doing your talk
about it, would you know?
I'm like, yeah, why not, manand uh.
But yeah, you go, it's prettyscary.
Yeah, like they give youworkshops and things and you
practice it and that so is itpretty profesh?
Yeah, yeah it is, it's prettyprofessional.
They run it like a business.
You know, you, you have, youhave these, uh, practice goes.

(02:54):
And then they they say, oh yeah, change this, change that.
And so they sort of frame yourtalk into a certain way and they
help me get it down to to whatit was and refine it, because I
can blab on.
Yeah yeah, totally For agesabout shit.

Sam Brown (03:08):
15 minutes, pretty succinct though.

Matt Liggins (03:11):
Yeah, well, I think it was longer.
I think they cut bits out,right.
But yeah, I could have talkedfor longer.
But you think about thisgeneration, right?
That's got the internet andSnapchat and Reels like their
attention span's dropping eh.
It's the 32 internet andsnapchat and reels like their
attention spans dropping.
Hey, it's 32nd generation.
Yeah, it's crazy man so like toget into 15 minutes.

Gerard Dombroski (03:31):
It's like eternity, let alone watch a
movie or something you know it'squite it's quite surprising
this whole podcast business likethat, people actually tune in
and listen to it.
It's like maybe it's supershort form and and long form for
when people are going for adrive or now the best.

Matt Liggins (03:50):
They're the best for going for a drive like.
I listened to your one withsimon devitt driving when I was
just down in palmy on onholidays recently and then I
listened to uh molla his chatand he was great.
I was really surprised, likefrom going from that show where
it's all pretty straight andthen his chat was great and

(04:12):
loose.

Sam Brown (04:13):
That's crazy, Chris, so surprising.
I mean, I feel like and I mightbe speaking out of turn here,
but I feel like Grand Designsmust have had to rein him in a
little bit- and I was thinkingto myself, man, let him go like
he's got.

Matt Liggins (04:27):
He's got great things to say, and then, and
then maybe the show is a bitgeneric and and people want that
um, they want that, that bit ofmagic and they want to hear
those things you wouldn'tnormally hear.
And you know, I learned heapsfrom just listening to him about
the cosmos and his building and, yeah, he's great.

Sam Brown (04:42):
He's a great um thinker yeah, it was pretty,
it's pretty cool the passion andexcitement is pretty inspiring
yeah, and you guys know him fromthe welly scene because you
guys are welly and I'm up hereyeah, we he was, he tutored us
and he was sort of a tutored usthrough university and has been
a bit of a mentor for for ben inparticular through the years.
So of course it's a pretty Imean architecture throughout.

Matt Liggins (05:06):
New zealand's a pretty tight community, so
everyone sort of knows everyoneyeah, totally yeah, and just the
friendships you get and how you, you know people go oh yeah,
I'm going to uni, I'm going todo my degree and get out of
there, but yeah, you forge theserelationships and you meet
these people you'd never meet,um, and you work with them
outside and you hook them upwith jobs and and you collab

(05:27):
with them and yeah, there'sheaps of exciting things that
can come for it if you're up forit.
You know you're open yeah,definitely.

Sam Brown (05:34):
I mean, like what, how does how does that play into
your involvement with education, particularly around auckland?
You know uni and stuff and Isaw last night uh, was it
yesterday?
You was it yesterday or lastnight or the other day you held
that sort of workshop that I sawthat on your on your story.
That looked really interesting.
Cool to get that sort of yeah,uh, student engagement.

Matt Liggins (05:54):
Yeah, that's it nah um, so that that just um.
Yeah, the second thing I hearthat, uh, sam's student network
in england um, that's my dog,pugsy, shut up.
You can see these constructionworkers working on the
convention center that burntdown.
You know he's, he sees theirhigh business gives a back.
But so anyway, yeah, the thesun's thing, I was just asked to
do a workshop.
So they, they ran this sort ofum, uh, open day kind of

(06:19):
question and answer for highschool students from south
auckland and in west a WestAuckland who wanted to do
architecture.
So yeah, I know the crew, Iknow Sahil from uni and he's a
pretty vocal guy, and they askedif I ran my City of Dreams
workshop with the students afterthey had this Q&A with this

(06:39):
panel from Unitec and AUT us andyeah, it would have been good
for someone from down your wayto be up there.
But yeah, we just did thisworkshop.
But yeah, the uni thing it'sgreat.
Man, like I practised for quitea while for other people, so I

(07:00):
kind of ended up teaching.
But I knew when I was a studentand some of my mates reminded
me they're like, oh man, yousaid in class, hey, imagine
doing this for a job you knowlater on and I was like, oh, and
then when I came back to teach,yeah, it's a great thing.
So, yeah, I practiced overseas.
Actually, I first practicedhere for a year in Tauranga

(07:23):
after graduating in Auckland andI worked for Dennis Pocock
Architects in Tauranga in kindof small office and learnt how
to draw up stuff.
And then went to London forthree and a half years four
years I worked for a trust overthere doing educational
buildings all around the UK,sort of learned about brick and

(07:45):
stone and being a projectarchitect and running meetings
and all that.
And then, yeah, kind of leftLondon and I was like, oh, man,
got to kind of go somewhere warm, somewhere where I can surf.
So I was like, okay, sydney.
So my mate, lee from Parming,lee Vertigen, the ex-Olympic
cyclist he's a good mate of mine, he's a great, great, great

(08:08):
person so he was living overthere and I was like, oh, I'll
go over there.
And, yeah, just hung out, endedup, he showed me Renato De
Torre's house.
I don't know if you know RenatoDe Torre, the Sydney architect.
He did a big house in Cji, um,for his brother-in-law and um,

(08:28):
it's like a big sort of Scarpainspired concrete monolith on
the coast and he's like checkthis out.
And then I just emailed him andthen got a job with him and I
worked.
Yeah, I worked for Renato forfour years.
I started my own practice afterI left there after four years
and did houses in Sydney and ina job in Melbourne for a mate
and then kind of did that foranother three years.

(08:48):
Then I was like, oh man, I'vebeen away for a while now and I
was like I wouldn't mind cominghome.
So I contacted Sarah Treadwell,who I used to teach with, and
Ross Jenner, and they said, ohyeah, come along.
And then I met up with AndrewBarry and then basically started
teaching Cool.

Sam Brown (09:09):
Yeah, good way to just sort of like put you know
Ben was talking about earlier.
You know earlier today how bestto welcome Ben.
Hey, ben Late comer.
Sorry about that, it's all goodmate, ben was talking about.

(09:35):
You know, about designing yourlife.

Matt Liggins (09:38):
You know, it sounds like you've Sorry about
that.
Like you, you have to designyour life.
Like um, you design your career, you design your relationships
and and things, and you've gotto make it work for you.
And I found out from doing forworking for people.
For, like, you know what's that?
Nine years of sitting down inan office, being there at nine,
leaving at five, get your lunchbreak, uh, doing cad

(10:00):
predominantly, you know, andthen finally being going to get
out onto site and things likethat.
Yeah, it's an office job, right,we sit on a desk or in an
office and you know, in London Ihave to wear a shirt and have a
meeting, put a tie on.
I had to get them to show mehow to.
You know, my project architectshout out to John Gray, who's an

(10:22):
old Surrey architect.
He was great, he took me underhis wings and he, you know, he
used to time a tie for me.
You know, after the cafe, youknow, if I didn't get any baked
beans on my top and then, andhe'd take me, then we'd go and
have these meetings.
But, yeah, like I, so I didthat and then did CAD, did CAD
for Renato, you know, when Iwent in there, um, it was 2008,

(10:43):
the GFC had just happened andyou know it was a small office
and we did, you know, big houses, but it was only like three of
us at the time.
So I was, you know, he couldn'tuse CAD, so I was pretty much
this CAD guy on Vectorworksbanging away and then suddenly I
was like, oh my God, my handsare sore.
I've got RSI, you know from theshortcuts from ArchiCAD and

(11:06):
Vectorworks, and the mouse.
And I thought to myself, man,this ain't sustainable.
And I was missing a lot of goodsurf.
Like you know, you finish work,go to the beach and it's
onshore.
And I said to myself, look, myhands are stuffed, I know what
I'm doing now.
And I said to myself, my, Ithought to myself, I've got to
have a change.
And then, right then that guyleo I told you about, he bought

(11:27):
a property in linton.
He got a sort of lifestyleblock with a house on it and, um
, and he's like we actually wereback here one one time at the
same time and he's like, come up, have a look.
And we looked at this view andI'm like, oh my god, it's, it's
got a great view.
It's out of Palmy, 10 minutesand it's cheap.
Places were cheap then and sohe bought it and then we just

(11:51):
moved the house off and then wedid this new house for him on a
really small budget.
Like you know, it was what wasit back in 2011,.
It was what was it back in 2011, and, yeah, it was something
like what is it?
1,500 a square metre and maybe170 square metres or something.

(12:14):
And, yeah, we built it reallycheap and modest and he's still
in there.

Sam Brown (12:20):
That's incredible.
I mean like it's a beautifulpiece of architecture For
listeners.
Obviously difficult with theaudio format, but it's a
beautiful piece of architectureFor listeners obviously
difficult with the audio format,but it's a beautiful glass
pavilion.
You know sweeping views, youknow to sort of build in
something like that for 1,500 asquare these days is sort of
it's unthinkable, eh.

Matt Liggins (12:36):
Yeah, yeah, that was back in the glory days, eh,
and yeah, we kept it like 2.7stud.
It's just shadow clad with astain, double glazed concrete
slab, concrete rock around thefire.
It gets nice and warm.
We were there like a few weeksago and he was just telling me
how warm it is.
We've actually done anextension.
He's got three daughters now sowe did another you know,

(13:01):
extension out the side and justbookmatched it and ran it
through and yeah, um, it was myfirst house and yeah, it was fun
and it was actually rightbefore the leaky home thing came
in.
And, um, I don't know if youknow what it's like to practice
in aussie, but you don't have tobe a registered architect.
But then, uh, to do building,to lodge a da, which is a
building consent, yeah, it'sdifferent working over there,
it's a lot easier and nicer asan architect to practice in

(13:22):
aussa.
But and then, yeah, I had toget it through council with
these rfis and they said, yeah,you, because I, because I wasn't
a registered architect, Ididn't get registered at
renato's.
I should have, but I just keptworking and and that.
But yeah, we had to get it inright before the uh, all the
legislation changed and you needto be registered or lbp.
Yeah right, no surf and palmy,though how'd you cope?

Ben Sutherland (13:43):
yeah, there's no surf and palmy, but I'll to be
registered or LBP.
Yeah right, no surf and palmy,though how do you?

Matt Liggins (13:47):
cope.
Yeah, there's no surf and palmy.
But I'll tell you something,and I know you guys are down in
Welly and there might be somesurfers watching, but there's a
really good right-hand pointbreak just past Whanganui and
the east coast is real good,like north of Calfs Point.
Just cold, man, just cold.
I recently, last year, gotsurface air surgery on this ear

(14:10):
because I was turning into afish, you know, and they had to
drill it out or they knock youout and so, yeah, but years of
abuse in cold water and wind.
As you know, you're from Welly,you know what that South Coast
is like.

Sam Brown (14:24):
Eh, oh yeah, because at the moment it's brutal.
Yeah, you've got a big stormcame through.

Matt Liggins (14:35):
Eh yeah, I was down, and I was down in central
otago earlier last week andearlier in this week and came
home to wellington I thought itwas going to be a bit warmer,
but it was the opposite,unfortunately oh true, yeah,
it's hard down there, likebecause I actually grew up in
tokomaru, so you know tokomaruright, you guys are from, yeah,
so so my, um, my family, had adairy farm there and um, on my

(14:55):
dad's side they had it for yearsum three generations and then
so, right at tokomaru river,went through the back of our
farm, which is the border ofHora Whenua.
So I used to spend my time downthere ailing and motorbikes and
hay sheds and all that kind ofstuff with my mates.
So, yeah, it's crazy weatherdown there.

(15:18):
Man, like we live in Aucklandand if I show you out here, you
know it's a beautiful day today,no wind, it is.
Yeah, love it.

Ben Sutherland (15:31):
I've got all the windows open and I see you and
Gerard wearing the babies.

Matt Liggins (15:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Ben Sutherland (15:40):
I'm up in Auckland as well.

Gerard Dombroski (15:42):
I've finally got it to 20 degrees in here.
Ah yes, she's central heating.
It's more demoralising thananything else like realising how
cold my workshop office is.
Yeah.

Matt Liggins (15:59):
Gerard, I love your workshop, I love seeing you
make all that stuff.
Eh, it's so great Like makingstuff.
You can't beat it right, youknow, yeah, you know.
Oh, it's pretty good we need toget you up here, mate, and get
you on the tools okay, um, myold flatmate was a, was a welder
, and we welded these um standsfor this, these sculptures I
made.
But yeah, you, you got a umhell of a setup.

(16:21):
And I don't know if you knowangus mueller he, he's my mate.
Yeah, we bought a lot of stufftogether, like um and that and
it's great to see, like the, thecomputer spaces right, and then
you got the workshop and youcan jump between them.
You get sick of cad orcomputers and you jump on and
start making something.
The balance between design andbuild, eh, when you've got two

(16:43):
there, it's really healthy foryou.

Gerard Dombroski (16:47):
Yeah, I think mine was a similar frustration
as yours is that when you workfor somebody for a while and
then you kind of realise that,oh shit, I'm working an office
job and it's like what.
Like I was brought up on a farmand so I thought office jobs
would be like quite a terrifyingprospect as a child I thought

(17:09):
if I was going down this road,if you could kind of balance
between the two, that would bekind of a nice intermediary.

Matt Liggins (17:16):
So where was your?

Gerard Dombroski (17:17):
farm Waikato was where I was born and then
Ingvercargill for 10 years.
Oh wow, woodlands sort of area,yep, middle of nowhere, 20km
out of Ingvercargill.

Matt Liggins (17:31):
Yep, now I know that area.
My ex-girlfriend when I wasstudying was from Gore.
Oh, right on, yeah, yeah,little town.

Gerard Dombroski (17:40):
We used to have our little like end-of-year
primary school rugby things atthe ice skating rink there.
Oh true.

Matt Liggins (17:49):
And it would have been an outdoor ice skating rink
.
Was it an outdoor ice skatingrink?
That would just freeze over.

Gerard Dombroski (17:57):
Oh no, the Gore one was official.

Matt Liggins (17:59):
you know, it was a big old shed how do you, how do
you find the balance betweenyou know, because you do
architecture as well and youpractice and you do um, you do
furniture and art projects.
How do you find balancing those?
Um, because you don't teach?
Do you teach at all?

(18:19):
Are you involved with teachingthrough the year?

Gerard Dombroski (18:21):
I have in the past, and it was it was epic.
I loved teaching.
Friend Tane's trying toconvince me to do more teaching
yeah, which could be fun.
It just kind of activatessomething in your brain, I
reckon teaching and then justideas start coming out of
nowhere and just other peoplecoming up with ideas kind of

(18:43):
feeds you coming up with ideas.
Yeah, it's just this littlehive of ideas.
I found that awesome, likeawesome to be around.

Matt Liggins (18:52):
It is man.
The energy at uni is infectious.
You know, the thing is becauseI work I don't know how you find
this too I work at home bymyself.
So I'm a PTF, which is aprofessional teaching fellow.
So I teach two days a week, onesemester, maybe three the next,
and so, like when I'm at home,I'm by myself, and then I go to
uni and I'm surrounded with 500students, right, you know, and I

(19:15):
teach my design class andthesis and timber class, and
it's just the perfect balancebecause I struggle to be
creative around other people,like I love being by myself, I
love my desk, I other people, Ilove being by myself, I love my
desk, I love coffee, I lovemusic and the cat and the dog
and no one else is here, youknow, the missus has gone to
work and baby's at daycare and Iwork best with no one around.

(19:41):
Good coffee, and I used to watchthe news when I'd wake up
democracy now for eight minutesand get inspired, or you know,
kind of calibrate yourself, oryou turn it off if it's too much
or put music on, but the ideaof being by yourself, it gets
you into that flow state, thatenlightened state to be able to
think clearly and drawimmediately and flesh out ideas

(20:03):
super quickly on projects.

Sam Brown (20:06):
Do you find as well though it can be quite isolating
when you're trying to developideas?
I found that when I started atmy practice and I was working
from a basement just behind mehere actually, and I found it
really hard to come up withinitial concepts because you
don't have anyone to bounceideas off.
You've got no one to sort oflike feed, feed your mind in a

(20:30):
way, and I think, like like youguys talked about, having that
university connection reallyhelps with that.
Obviously, like when you've gotto put the pedal to the metal.
You know, a bit of isolationworking works for sure, but yeah
, I found it really hard to todevelop concepts or even just
generate ideas in isolation yeah, um, I guess one.

Matt Liggins (20:50):
What depends what it is.
But, like I, I try to work onlots of different things at once
and um have different projectsgoing at different stages.
Some are made up, some are likereal projects, some might be a
new installation, some might bea house I'm working on and, um,
I, I, I try to sketch, get itout and then sit it, sit it down

(21:12):
, like I I put.
I put projects and piles on thebed, um, and they're just
drawings, and I just draw umwith a, with a 0.72b because
it's quick, and on an a4cartridge.
You know book with only on oneside.
And I have a methodology ofworking and I kind of rip the
pages off if they suit theproject or they stay in a
sketchbook if they aren't aproject, and I keep all my

(21:36):
sketchbooks and so some thingsbecome projects.
But yeah, I don't stress ifthings aren't happening, I just
like, okay, leave it.
And then you know, I might beon the toilet, I might be out
surfing, I might be driving.
It activates the brain andthings might come up.
And I always have a sketchbookin my bag.
I take it with me and I justuse it to write lists and do

(21:58):
sketches and notes and things.
So because I've got to, youknow I'll forget because I've
got lots of different ideascoming.
Because I've got to, you knowI'll forget because I've got
lots of different ideas coming,so I try to get them down and
then they won't go anywherebecause they're on paper.

Ben Sutherland (22:10):
So what kind of things do you sketch?
Do you sketch like housedesigns or details or like
things that you like?

Matt Liggins (22:21):
What are you sketching?
Yeah, everything that's a goodpoint.
Like I use it for a mind map so, yeah, so if I'm doing a house,
so normally if I get a house, Iwould straight away google it,
the address, and go to streetview, google maps, have a look
and just sketch out ideas.
If I'm got this straight awayenergy.
But, yeah, I write down thingsI find interesting books, music,

(22:45):
bits of artwork.
I'm constantly screenshottingInstagram or Google images of
things as a recording of whatthey are, even emails.
I'll screenshot the email justso I remember, because I'm a
visual person.
So anything that's recordedvisually is useful for me.
But, yeah, when I sketch and Iteach my students to do it,

(23:09):
sketch drawing shows yourthinking and you have a record
of your thinking and you can goback chronologically and see,
you know, and make roughiterations on things.
So, yeah, so plan detailsection, details, artworks and
plan section or XO.
Yeah, but I just love drawing,like I've always, always drawn.

(23:30):
I always did art and keptdrawing at school and for me, it
keeps me sane Having asketchbook writing down stuff.
It keeps me how would I say mymind clear, like if I didn't
write down all the time, my mindwould be a mess and I don't
like digital lessons.
Yeah, get it out and put it ina little folder or a file like a

(23:55):
computer file you know what Imean.

Ben Sutherland (23:57):
Yeah, that's definitely when I start
procrastinating.
The most is when I've just gottoo much running through my mind
.
I don't know what to prioritise, so you can't just sit there
thinking about a little bit ofanything and then it's like, oh
my God, I'm getting absolutelynowhere.

Matt Liggins (24:13):
Yeah, and so another hack I have when I told
you about my filing system on mybed is anything that's
immediate like I've got to do ittoday it goes to the right, and
anything that goes to the leftis not as important.
If there's another row, it's,like you know, in the future.
So I used to do that, I stilldo it, as a way of trying to

(24:35):
prioritize where I'm at.
And another thing and I tellthe students this as well is I
only worry about one thing atonce.
Like you know, you've got allthis stuff in your head out.
One thing at once.
Like I, you know you got allthis stuff in your head.
I'm like, well, look, you'vegot this task to do.
You, you know, like they mighthave a design, we were in design
but they're worried about tech.
And I'm like, look you're here,do your design as soon as it
gets done, do tech, or viceversa.
So trying to do two things atonce is not healthy, and I know

(25:00):
dean merckett used to do onehouse at once, right?
yeah they wouldn't do two housesat once, always one house after
the other one.

Ben Sutherland (25:07):
Yeah, I've got a similar thing on a smaller
scale where I try and justachieve one task, one major task
a day.
So I'm live with the daily taskand then if I, you know, it's a
task that has to be big enoughto, like you know, have some
sort of meaning behind it.
But if I achieve that one taskthat it feels like I've

(25:27):
accomplished something you knowduring the day, and then
everything else is kind of justa bonus yeah, that's it, man,
that releases your dopamine likethe first thing I always do.

Matt Liggins (25:39):
Well, I had ocd as a kid so my room was spotless,
like I had to have everythingperfect and aligned, and I'm
glad I got rid of it somehow.
So I have it a bit but um.
But yeah, first thing Inormally do is I wake up.
And now now I wake up and I gowith the daughter maybe or
something, and then get rid ofthe dog and catch it.

(25:59):
That goes, but make the bed.
You know, you make your bed andyou feel like you've
accomplished one task for theday, and then you just think of
that like hey, I've got thingsto do and I will just work
through the system of doingthese tasks, and then you
concentrate on that one thing Ineed to do for work today and do
the next one tomorrow.

Sam Brown (26:20):
It's a good way of balancing everything, because I
imagine, matt, you're pretty,you know you've got a lot of
things coming from a lot ofavenues.
You know the architecture side,the art obviously you know you
can see some of the stuff behindyou on the video and also the
education thing.
Like that's a lot of thingscoming from a lot of different
angles to sort of balance.
So you know it's good to have asystem, that's for sure.

(26:41):
I mean, how does the art fitinto all of this?

Matt Liggins (26:44):
Yeah, so the art thing probably comes from the
frustrations of working as anarchitect Also like.
So I've always liked art, likeI was always that kid in the
class in Tokumaru that would dothe drawings and, you know, win
the competitions of the littleclay man, the Mexican man
sleeping on the thing.
But I've always liked art andI've always thought about doing,

(27:07):
you know, fine arts.
But the art projects they cameabout by, I guess, in Sydney.
When I finished working forRenato after those four years I
was like man, I just want abreak.
And so I was living in Waterlooand we had a big courtyard so I
just spent the whole summerpainting, painting and painting

(27:28):
and painting and had a show.
And that whole art thing cameabout really by when I was
working with Renato.
This artist moved in next doorand I'd just been home for
summer.
My sister goes hey, I got yourbook on Brett Whiteley.
I don't know if you know brettwhiteley, the australian painter

(27:48):
, and uh, he's very famousaustralian painter.
He, um, he was.
He.
He won a competition when hewas young.
He went and went and worked inlondon and, um, new york, but
anyway, he, his best man wasMichael Johnson.
So my sister got me this book,art and Life, and I read the

(28:09):
introduction and it talked aboutMichael Johnson and this guy
moved in next door to Renato'sand I could smell this oil paint
and then he had this signJohnson on the door.
And then I saw him come downthe hallway and he's like 70-odd
and then I said, oh, you're notMichael Johnson, are you?
And he goes, goes, oh, I am.
And then we just startedchatting, we became friends but

(28:30):
he inspired me because he was agreat colour field painter as
well and he inspired me to be anartist, like to balance the two
.
So, working in Renato's office,you know, doing big houses in
Hamilton Island and concrete,you, you know in-situ concrete
bought a form highly detailedand sculptural and it was

(28:50):
stressful.
You know what it's like.
You know you're in an officeand getting stuff built and then
next door was Michael Johnson'sSmokey Siggy's listening to
like music and that, and so,yeah, he kind of inspired me to
follow the art thing and thenall my installations basically
came about.
When I got back to New ZealandI had a friend I've got a friend

(29:13):
whose mum was running Art Weekand she knew I taught and she
said, oh, do you and yourstudents want to do some stuff
for Art Week and so, yeah, Iended up doing the pyramid
schema, that little pyramid thatI set in to do people up.
Yeah, polycarb number no, no,the pyramid is the little….

Gerard Dombroski (29:36):
Is that the little drawing, one that you set
in?

Matt Liggins (29:37):
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, if you go to YouTube andtype in my name, you can watch a
little video that Sirip made.
But basically I was frustratedwith how hard it was back here
for cost of living, like it isnow, and I thought I can cheer
people up by sitting inside thispyramid scheme and uh and meet,
meet random people, have aconversation, find out what

(29:58):
makes them happy in life, do adrawing and give it out to them
so they can have a reminder whentimes get tough that what's
important is your family, yourfriends, food, you know, uh,
whatever so certain trianglesyeah secret man in a pyramid
yeah, it was a bit weird, it wasa bit kind of confessional, um,

(30:18):
so, yeah, so I started with thepyramid schema.
then I was like, yeah, so afterthat I was like I'm going to do
something else for Art Week nextyear and me and my mate Kyle,
we built the plastic bag houseat Angus's, angus Mewes, so it
was basically I thought I wassitting in this little pyramid
on a beer crate right, and I waslike man, this is small and

(30:39):
uncomfortable, why don't I justmake a bed?
So next time I can just lie ona bed and have a sleep bed.
So so next time I can just lieon a bed and have a sleep, okay,
so, so, yeah, so I had thespare bed and uh, and then the
whole design was based aroundthis little queen-sized, uh,
futon.
And then I we built this sortof, um, you know, um, 32 mil, um
, ply, um, yeah, we just um, gotmy mate, who's a doiner, just

(31:03):
to rip it, draw it up and rip itinto these equilateral
triangles.
And then, yeah, that was theplastic bag house and that was
with polycarb 8-mol, twin-molpolycarb and LED lights from
Angus.
So that was the second of thethree, because I said to myself
oh, I just want to do threetriangular projects.
And then the second one, sorry,the third one was the Vitruvian

(31:26):
Tunnel, which was so Angus goes.
Oh, we can do this newinstallation for Bright Nights
for Keane you know, it's myfirst light festival and he goes
, what do you want to do?
And I said, oh, I had to thinkabout it.
And I was just thinking aboutthe triangle.
I looked up at the lights onenight inside the Placid Bag
House and saw the sort of youknow, the symmetry lines

(31:47):
reflecting back and I thought,man, that's cool.
And then the triangle.
I thought, man, this is, I wantto do something, I can stand in
there.
So I scaled it to the Vitruvianman drawing by Da Vinci.

Gerard Dombroski (32:02):
Yeah, I actually came across that in
Taupo.
Was that in Taupo?
Yeah, yeah yeah, a in.

Matt Liggins (32:07):
Taupo, yeah, that's it.
I did a tour and it was therejust half of it, though there's
the back half that no one couldafford.
So everyone got the trianglepart, but I thought the coolest
part was actually this part atthe end which went orthogonal
with a skilling roof a fewbudget cuts people can't afford
it.
so I did with a skilling roof.

(32:28):
Yeah, a few budget cuts, ohyeah, people can't afford it, eh
.
So I had both the tunnels outfor Bright Nights.
It was at the Kia World ClassNew Zealander Awards in Sky City
.
For one night they just had thefront triangle, but we just set
it up in the short time andthen it always went out as just
the front triangle.
And then I had a show atTamanoa in Palmy and they had
enough money to do both.

(32:48):
So it was awesome to get theback half out.
And now it's still sitting inmum and dad's garden,
flat-packed on some crates witha tarp on it, waiting for the
next show.

Gerard Dombroski (33:01):
Waiting for the next budget.
You've done some epic projectswith like the light and all your
light projects.

Matt Liggins (33:08):
Yeah, nice strong geometries, sort of repeating
yeah, I think you know geometry,you know um, a big thing, big
thing was always get away fromthe classical symmetry and
things.
But I love um, I love platonicsolids and I love um the
relationship of different shapes.
So, yeah, the Euclidean Towercame from after having the

(33:33):
actually.
So the Euclidean Tower actuallycame from this ego tower.
From behind that you might see.
I did the ego tower, which isthis architect's ego, with a
scale wall next to it 1 to 500,that you know, everyone's like
hey, my building's taller, hey,my building's bigger.
But you know, a model isscaleless until you put a scale

(33:55):
ruler next to it, right, and itproves how stupid the whole ego
is to say, hey, mine's taller orbetter.
And so that was my first tower.
And then I thought, hey, I gotinvited to do a festival in
Turama for Turama Festival inAlbert Park with the explore
crew and I started designing it.
Covid happened, but it wasdelayed for three years.

(34:17):
But they gave me money eachyear to keep working on it.
So I did the Euclidean Towerbased on Euclidean geometry,
which is point line, planegeometry, which is how you draw
shapes.
You know, with a pen you mightjust touch the pad, there's a
dot that's a point to a line,and then follow it around to a
shape that might be a triangle,so that becomes the plane.
And I just wanted to createsomething.

(34:39):
So from the outside it would bethe point line at the top on a
line column, and then you lookinside it and there was your
oculus as you look up it and allthese different shapes, sort of
you could look through them andyou could look through to the
point and the line at the top.
So yeah, that's where that onecame from.

Gerard Dombroski (34:59):
It's kind of like one of those things that
you look through as a kid andyour kaleidoscope.

Matt Liggins (35:04):
Yeah, yeah, kind of like a kaleidoscope on the
sides, and I still want to getit back out there like it wasn't
.
It wasn't, it wasn't exhibitedagain yet.
Um, because it it needs a highapp like it's 9.6 meters high,
so it needs a high end to liftall the bits that you sort of
screw down and you've got to goup there on the ladder.
I didn't do it, jared and Timdid it to hook all the cables up

(35:27):
.
So it's a big install.
But I did think at the end ofit I could get mirrored ACM or a
mirrored vinyl wrap and do thewhole inside in it in mirrored
vinyl and the top of it.
There's actually a triangle,sorry, a square on an angle at
the top and I was thinking, man,it could be awesome to play

(35:50):
with that, or one-way glass.
And you know, keep revising ithow much?

Sam Brown (35:54):
how much design iteration matt goes into these
sort of installations, or areyou sort of just like throwing
it out there and using theactual installation as sort of
your iterative design process?

Matt Liggins (36:05):
nah, no shit, no, it's too expensive.
Eh, like, um, like they costquite a bit, um, because they're
so large.
So I like I say before, I slowcook ideas um over time through
drawing, and they might just bea primitive drawing of the idea
from history and then I'll playwith it into an arrangement
where I can think about how itmight relate to a space for

(36:27):
people in there and what sort ofeffects or translations I would
like to achieve.
But yeah, just drawing anddrawing and and drawing and I
try to nut it out as much as Ican.
And then I, and then I used togo see Scott, my CNC fabricator,
just to chat to him about it.
He's like, oh yeah, if you didit this way, it's easier.
And da, da, da.

(36:47):
So he knows about his, hisspecialty, which is great.
And also at Angus's Rob, robdoes all the CNCing and he you
know meetings with Angus and Robjust to suss out, hey, try this
, try that that would work.
And so they've got really goodexperience in building.
Like, I don't think I'm thatgood a builder but I can design.
But yeah, utilising theirexperience to flesh out, once

(37:11):
you've got your design, what'sthe best way to fabricate it and
then build it.

Sam Brown (37:16):
Are you model making through this process or is it
purely drawing?

Matt Liggins (37:19):
Yeah, it's sketching the whole time.
And then Angus jokes about thistoo, because he always makes a
Rhino model.
I don't know Rhino, but allthese installations I actually
draw them up in 2D on ArchiCAD.
So I'll just draw them up invector lines and I actually
never make a 3D model.
So the 3D models were just formarketing and um, there's no

(37:41):
free model of the euclideantower.
I had to.
Someone else made a 3d model ofthe vitruvian tunnel.
Um, and then and then thelatest work that mean angus did,
color theory, where we builtthe color wheel.
We just did sketches and thenhe actually modeled it up in
three hours.
That has placed an audity pointand made a model of the of the
color theory work, the latestwork we did nice, it's quite.

Sam Brown (38:05):
It's quite an interesting way of working.
I mean, I'd amazing how yourmind must be able to sort of
design in three dimensionsbecause so much of the work is
so such a three-dimensional,tangible type experience.
But you're doing it all, youknow, in this, in an essence, in
2d.
Yeah, it's, you know it's evenit's quite traditional in a way.
You know, if you think, like,like you said, maybe it comes

(38:27):
back to your early days.
You know, drawing everything upin vector works to a degree,
but you know, like I, I findthat really difficult.
You know, working only in today, I'll quite quickly move, moved
into 3D modeling, and it wasone of the chats that we had
quite early on in the podcast.
We sort of challenged ourselvesto do a little bit more
modeling.
Ben, how's that going?
But yeah, I think it's justfascinating, you know, just to

(38:53):
hear someone else's approach todesign and you know, it's kind
of remarkable that you can takesomething from 2D and the final
products are three dimensionswithout having that sort of
stepping stone in between.

Matt Liggins (39:04):
Yeah, yeah, because I'm old.
Eh, I'm 47.
I don't know how old you guysare, but I'm an old dad.
My daughter's just about two.
So I did tech drawing at highschool, right, and that was
pretty much orthographicprojections right.
And this is before CAD came in.

(39:25):
So we had drawing boards, setsquares, t-squares, so I did
tech drawing from third form toseventh form and absolutely
loved it, like, and I think it'sthat analog learning of before
the digital came in.
I use it as my way to designbecause I know it's accurate and

(39:46):
I'm not worried about form.
It can mean that I am at theend, but it's not the form
that's a driver.
It's maybe the limitations ofmaterials or how things are
going to go together, or gettingthe proportions right that I
can break it up into differentsizes or whatever.
But yeah, I'm quite tight whenI get onto CAD, but before that

(40:10):
I'm as loose as a goose with mysketches.

Gerard Dombroski (40:14):
Yeah, I'm just looking at your website, for
for those listening, I recommendgoing to ligginsmatcom is yeah,
that's the art one, yeah, butmatt liggins.

Matt Liggins (40:25):
And then it takes you the art or architecture.
I kind of.
I got told by philip cox, who'sone of michael johnson's good
mates, to split them up, don'toverlap them.

Gerard Dombroski (40:33):
I have a separate architecture and a
separate art yeah, I like thatit has the uh junction page
where it comes up with the twolevels yeah it's nice.
But going into, like I've justbeen following along this chat,
looking at your like colourtheory page and you can see down
there in the sketches, likeyou're running through, like all
your details as well as likesome quite mechanical as well as

(40:56):
conceptual, you're obviouslythinking about the whole
spectrum, like junction detailspretty early on.

Matt Liggins (41:05):
Yeah, I think a lot of that came with Angus.
So with that work it's like anengineering object, right, so it
rotates.
So we built the colour wheel sowe could rotate the primary
colours on the triangle on theinside.
And that's top, hung with arotator, that sort of sits on a
frame that sits on all thepanels and then underneath is a

(41:27):
big steel frame that supportsthe base, which has a bigger
rotator in it, and then thatrotates the hexagon, which is a
lot bigger.
And then we had to have sometolerance so they can rotate
independently, clockwise andanticlockwise so three forms
right and the two inside onesare rotating yeah, it's three.
It's three.
So the inside is a triangleprimary colors.

(41:48):
On the outside of that is theis the hexagon, which is the
three secondary colors which you, when you mix the primary
colors, and then the outside isthe deca colours which, when you
mix the primary colours, andthen the outside is the decagon,
the 12-sided shape which isfixed, which has all the
mixtures of the three primary,three secondary and three
tertiary colours.
And the idea is that you have acontroller and you've got this

(42:12):
joystick that rotates thetriangle and hexagon to colour
mix all these different coloursand different colour
combinations.

Gerard Dombroski (42:20):
Yeah, yeah, I think the process of delivering
like well, sculptureinstallation is it's pretty much
exactly the same asarchitecture, like you're going
through the same thoughtprocesses and deliveries, like
it's just like the frame of asculpture is just a bit faster,
like, yeah, I think that's ahuge appeal to me.

(42:42):
In making sculpture and art andobjects, whatever is that you
kind of get to play with ideas alot faster and kind of, whilst
you're mixing onto an idea, it'san overall iteration, I guess
yeah, you get more bang for yourbuck, hey, like doing a movie
is like doing a.

Matt Liggins (43:00):
Sorry, doing a, you know a house is like doing a
movie, hey.
Or doing three houses is like ayou know lord of the rings or
something you know, and itreally takes it, takes it out of
you and like, especially, theidea of control.
Like you know, when you're doingan artwork and it's just you
and the fabricator and builder,you know you've got all the

(43:22):
choices and you know doing ahouse is is great, don't get me
wrong.
It's like people need them andthey feel so great inside a good
house and a good space, butlike I mean so many people
involved in that process.
So, as you know, you know youget the, a client, then you get
the, then you get your site,then you get counsel coming in
and you get so many differentpeople and if they're not

(43:42):
aligned, they you can slowly geteaten away at what you want and
it's so hard sometimes you workso hard to get certain things
manifested and and these littlethings that someone might see on
a, on a, on a on a thursdaynight, on a, on a um a TV show,
the block and go, oh, let's dothat.
And you're like oh man, I wasthinking about that 15 years ago

(44:04):
and things like that.
You know, matt as well.

Sam Brown (44:07):
It's kind of like correct me if I'm wrong, but in
most cases are you doing yourart for yourself, whereas if
you're doing architecture it'svery rarely.
If ever for yourself, it'salways for someone else.
That's sort of like thatdifferentiating point as well.
You're sort of your own clientwhen it's your artwork.
Yeah.

Matt Liggins (44:24):
Yeah, well, the client is the festival, but
you're the artist.
But yeah, I've never, I'vealways travelled and have never
put down roots anywhere but todo my own house one day.
But one day maybe, new build ordo an Alton ads on my parents
and pal me If we ever end upthere.

(44:45):
But yeah, it would be amazingto do your own house one day.
But man, it's expensive tobuild.
It's expensive.

Sam Brown (44:54):
Don't get me started.

Matt Liggins (44:58):
Like in an ideal world.
Eh, like you know, we'll beback to 1,500 a square metre and
sites would be 200 grand andyou know we wouldn't have leaky
homes and we wouldn't have todetail our arse off and do these
like tell a builder how to suckeggs and things like that, just
to get consent.
But, yeah, that's a dream.
One day, maybe.

(45:19):
Utopia, right?
Yeah, the utopia in thearchitectural world.
Hopefully it's coming one day.
But you know it's so expensiveto get all your consultants and
all these new regulations andyou know it's gone nuts over
here.

Sam Brown (45:34):
Yeah, it must be nice sort of having that and, gerard
, you must find it the same.
Like you know, my practice it'sjust it's all in architecture
and so you know it's justconstant frustration essentially
.
Obviously it's super rewardingbut it's tough, I mean, for you
guys.
Having that outlet, you know,that artistic or that sculptural
or that furniture outlet, mustbe so nice.

(45:54):
Having something that's so muchmore freeing, to kind of turn
to when things get a little bitstressed oh, totally, as they
age, you're like it, but youneed both.

Matt Liggins (46:05):
Hey, I don't know if you realize you do one for
too long and then you startgoing man, there's no
constraints and I can dowhatever I want and then and
then.
So it's nice to be able to,yeah, to fluctuate them, and and
I guess that's one of thereasons I decided to teach is so
I get my consistent pay andconsistent work.
And then if I get a house, it'sgreat, and if you get an art

(46:28):
project, it's great, but yeah,so teaching for me has really
let me be able to do it.
But yeah, they're so differentwhen you practice both of them,
but there are some overlaps too.

Gerard Dombroski (46:40):
Yeah, I find, like the process is, I kind of
try to feed into each other abit, but I guess sometimes, I
don't know, sometimes someartwork just seems a little
futile.

Matt Liggins (46:55):
Yeah, no meaning, you know it's a little bit
extravagant, or the idea it'snot changing anyone's lives or
it's not, and you know it's noteducating them at all and it's a
little bit um um hedonisticyeah, and I got into art and
furniture specifically toinfluence my architecture.

Gerard Dombroski (47:16):
So then it kind of seems pointless to then
stay too far away fromarchitecture.
So then you jump back intoarchitecture again, but then
it's like you're running threecompanies or whatever yeah,
three hats, giving like a couplehours here and a couple hours
there.
I need to take some of youguys' tips on time management.

Matt Liggins (47:37):
Yeah, so that's a good.
Hey, that's a good point,though, like you know, you just
said you do a bit there one day,or on a day you might have
three things to do, but I try tokeep it simple so I can just do
one thing for the day and thenit's hard to jump.
Yeah, it's hard, like if Iteach I'm it's hard for me to do
other work when I come homefrom teaching, and so, yeah, I

(47:57):
don't think it's good to mixthem over the day, if you can.
I heard that Corb would paintin the morning and do
architecture in the afternoon.
I don't think I could do that,but I do have naps.
Like you know, a bedroom isright there.
I work from home, so like it's aluxury of being by yourself at
home and no staff.
So I've got a technician inPalmy that does all my building

(48:21):
consents now, my planner, samGifford he's in Wellington and
my engineer, cass Goodwin's inCrossrook.
So I've got a team that aren'there.
So we just, you know, zoommeetings and stuff.
But yeah, if I ever get likeoverloaded and tired, I love
napping, especially after havinga kid and uh, I go in there and
I'll lie down, put a podcast onor a doco or youtube or

(48:42):
something, or even read a thesisI've got to examine and then
just fall asleep and then get upand go again and it's a reset
for me and I think I thinkeveryone should have that little
bed in the office to have asleep at lunchtime, because
you're more productive yeah, itdoesn't sana.

Gerard Dombroski (48:59):
What's what's sujima from?
Sana naps at the office ohthere you go, man.

Matt Liggins (49:04):
Yeah, so I I agree with you.
I reckon honestly you just youcan go again and it feels like
you've got.
You know 365 times two days inyour life.
You know every day is that the?

Sam Brown (49:17):
Is that the trick to the 36-hour day?

Matt Liggins (49:20):
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, try sending a client somehourly for that hey.

Sam Brown (49:29):
It was thinking time, I was dreaming.

Matt Liggins (49:32):
Hey, yeah, that's something that doesn't get.
That's hard to put a number on.
Hey, is your thinking time ofyour conceptual work?
It's impossible.

Sam Brown (49:41):
I find that one of the hardest things.
When you're, you know,particularly working for
yourself and you're trying tocalculate billables, and it's
either thinking time or it'slike planning time, and whether
that be like setting up new jobsor trying to get work or you
know, whatever you know, youlook at your day and you're like
where have I actually sat downand build work?

(50:03):
And you're like I haven't, youknow.
But yeah, in saying that,you've spent the entire day
working on projects, but it'stoo hard to quantify, you know
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt Liggins (50:13):
I used to hate having to fill out time sheets
at Renato every 15 minutes likea lawyer, and yeah, it was hard,
man, and just the pace of beingin a practice like that, you're
exhausted.
I remember when I started Iused to come home from work and
fall asleep before the news cameon.
You know, you know you're sotired and drained and you've got
nothing, and I thought tomyself, man, I've got nothing to

(50:34):
give, like I can't like.
I thought to myself, man, I'vegot nothing to give, like I
can't, I can't.
Like I want to have my own firmone day, so I'll just learn as
much as I can.
But you know, to keep workingfor people and give them
everything, it's hard, man, andespecially, you know, half the
time people don't even know whatyou contributed to that thing.
But I guess not everyone wantsto take a risk to run a practice

(50:57):
and have the ups and downs andyou don't know when the next.
You know you don't know whenthe next um fees are coming from
, and you know.

Gerard Dombroski (51:03):
But you know you've got, you know, fees
coming out for rent and um, allthat other stuff and it's just,
it's not easy, you know yeah,it's definitely luxuries to to
both approaches, but yeah, it'skind of hard to work for
somebody else when you have Idon't know, a whole bunch of
ideas that you desperately wantto work on.
Yeah.

Matt Liggins (51:25):
And what about Jared, your piccolo, that little
cabin?
You did that, didn't needconsent, did it Nah?

Gerard Dombroski (51:33):
Nah, so you just fire away really on that
one, don't you that?
Was all made out of rubbish and, yeah, we pulled apart another
little shed that was down by therailway line.
So then I kind of chopped up.
That was cut into 1200 by 24just plywood sort of frames, so

(51:55):
we kind of repurposed a bunch ofthose.
Yeah, that was a really funproject of working with, I guess
, exactly what you have.
Yeah, I don't know, I was quitesurprised that we came out with
that process at the end.

Matt Liggins (52:12):
Yeah, I think it's one of the best buildings.
You know that, and some ofPatchwork's stuff that's been
done lately Like I honestlythink and Bill Mackay has a
strong view on it too thatthere's too many rules in this
country for planning, and youknow, you live here and you can.
You know the council tells youwhat to do.
But man, if people haven't gota, you know they're sleeping in

(52:33):
their cars and they're sleepingrough, and why aren't we just
able to?
Just well, they're sort ofeasing up on it now, but I just
think, man, shelter just to havethe water off you.

Gerard Dombroski (52:49):
Yeah, there should be a basic right of being
able to make a structurewithout fear of somebody coming
and ripping it down if it's justkeeping you dry.

Matt Liggins (52:54):
What is it in that triangle?
It's food, shelter, clothing.
So why don't we say to peoplehey, look, you can wear what you
want.
You don't tell people what towear, you don't tell people what
to eat.
But what about if you letpeople go?
Hey, shoreland, I'll let youbuild what you want, but you
know, obviously no one's goingto buy it and buy it for much
money.
But you're cold, like I justthink that like I've got a big

(53:20):
housing issue and look what'shappening with Kairangaroa at
the moment, and all this and youthink to yourself man, maybe we
just need to go back to the oldbatch days and simplify things
so people can at least have thatbasic right to build a basic
shelter for themselves.

Sam Brown (53:34):
Yeah, it's definitely something to be said for
deregulation.
I know Ben's always up againstit with his medium density stuff
.

Ben Sutherland (53:40):
That's all I do is fight the council day in and
day out.

Matt Liggins (53:44):
How do you do it?
Ben, how do you do it, mate?
Honestly, how do you do it?
Four?

Ben Sutherland (53:48):
hours sleep a night.
That's how I do it, because therest of the time I'm just lying
again thinking about howannoyed and frustrated I am.

Matt Liggins (53:59):
No, that's not healthy man.
Four hours sleep is not good.

Sam Brown (54:04):
This is coming from a man with a two-year-old as well
, Ben.

Matt Liggins (54:08):
Yeah, I heard you had to pick up your daughter
from daycare the other day.
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Brown (54:14):
I'll have to go and get her in about 15 minutes as
well.

Ben Sutherland (54:18):
Yeah, yeah, I do my full time.
So, anyway, he's actually justgoing for a nap, yeah it's
napping.

Matt Liggins (54:23):
And who did I speak to the other day?
Yeah, rata.
I said to Rata I don't know ifyou know Rata up here, great guy
.
And I said, oh, he goes.
Yeah, I've just become reallygood at napping because he's got
a young girl.
But yeah, man, you know thosebig, complicated, medium density
stuff with so many serviceshappening and council
regulations, even the designguidelines.

(54:43):
I don't agree with half of therules in there about changing
materials and break it up.
It becomes expensive.
Like you know, we should besimplifying our design, simplify
the envelope, simplifymaterials and don't try to do
too many gymnastics that lookcrap, you know.
For instance, look at likeHotel Britannia, just a simple
sort of tile facade with offsetwindows, job done.

(55:05):
You know our sensibility hereis whack and it's expensive and
it looks like shit.
It's like, you know, you can'tgive everyone all these rules
and then they look terrible andthe status quo here is, you know
, the award for mediocrity isterrible, like it's crap.
You drive around andeverything's in ice.

(55:25):
The townhouses that they put inare just junk.

Gerard Dombroski (55:30):
Yeah, that rule for breaking facades up is
just bullshit, yeah.

Matt Liggins (55:34):
Like Crossland, do some great work with you know,
just move some windows or justkeep simple forms and one
material and it's such afrustrating rule but also just
going back to what you weresaying about the cost of
materials and everything I mean,that's the reason.

Ben Sutherland (55:51):
Everyone just builds this hamster nook rubbish
because it's just cheap andcareful.
They just do it for as cheap aspossible and it still looks
like crap.
So it's no rubbish because it'sjust deep and careful, they
just do it for as deep aspossible and it still looks like
track.
So it's unfortunate.
Yeah.

Matt Liggins (56:04):
Yeah, but you know design, you know, with being a
good designer, working with asmall budget and doing something
nice is more about asensibility.
Eh, yeah, you know, we've allgot decisions to make and it's
like sometimes the firstdecisions architects make on an
approach for something is whackfor one design and two for cost,

(56:25):
and I don't know whether we'vegot this hotchpotch too much
hotchpotch here that we don'tknow what to look at.
There's too much stimuli orwe've got too many different
periods.
But it's a shame that we um,you know peter, I'm ashamed that
we don't have a good rationalefor medium density and
townhouses.
Like peter barber I don't knowif you know him the uk architect

(56:46):
does some amazing work withbrisk, brick and um.
Yeah, and material choices arewhack.
But also, yeah, the way wedesign, yeah, it's um, it's all
over the place yeah, it'simmediately out there.

Ben Sutherland (57:03):
Yeah, it's immediately here peter barbers.

Gerard Dombroski (57:07):
Um, I had to google that one because didn't
know his name that's that one Iwas showing you a while ago
being that multi-unit with allthe archways and, yeah, nice
recess.
Ah, yeah, that's like anawesome example of.

Ben Sutherland (57:21):
Yes, oh yeah, Absolutely yeah that's really
cool Super simple, super clean.

Matt Liggins (57:28):
Yeah, and you know , you just make little changes
and you keep the materials thesame.
I don't know whether it's theboomers that have just the
boober planners that are stuckin their ways and it's so hard
to change things in this country.
Maybe we just need time to moveon a bit and we can actually,
you know, rethink about the waywe're building and how we're

(57:49):
building and look overseas, look, look, you know, go and go and
spend some time looking at someof his work and um and just
seeing what really works andwhat's got longevity and what's
got better materiality than whatwe're doing.

Ben Sutherland (58:04):
How much of this do you think is like influence
from the council or regulations,or how much of it is just that
people have bad taste in thiscountry?

Sam Brown (58:17):
I was about to say this, ben, because I think a lot
of it.
Yes, people have bad taste inthis country.
I was I was about to say this,ben, because I think a lot of it
.
Yes, okay, council's to blame.
And yes, okay, there are someissues with regulations and
building code etc.
Etc.
But I also definitely thinkthat and no offense to general
public listening to this but,like, most people have really
bad taste and I don't know ifit's just us coming from a
design background and we cansort of like understand and read

(58:40):
nuances of what's good andwhat's not.
But, you know, maybe it's noteven bad taste.
It's that I'd say.
New Zealanders as a whole are avery safe society, so they like
to just go with what is normalor what the general public like.
They don't really like to takerisks.
You know, I think that's maybethe issue.

Matt Liggins (59:00):
Yeah, maybe it's the Anglo.
What was that?

Gerard Dombroski (59:01):
Whatever latest house Richard McCall's
built yeah, like a Skylinegarage or something or whatever.

Matt Liggins (59:09):
You know the culture, new Zealand culture,
the Anglo side of it.
Right, you know it's all aboutconforming, right, all the
houses I lived in London forfour years and I know what a
english townhouse looks like andand all this.
You know, um, but, yes, it'sthat wanting to fit in with
everyone else, it's, uh, stupidrules of um, looking nice at the

(59:29):
front but not having a spacethat people can use, the
setbacks, the little fence andda-da-da, all that old, shitty
rules that we have here.
But, yeah, it's a shame.
You can dig deeper than justarchitecture.
As a culture.
You know, we're pretty blandand we're isolated as an island

(59:51):
and we don't have much to dowith other countries.
Right, you know, you're NewZealand, you're Aussie, you're
Indo, you're Bali really, theyjust go to Bali or you might go
to asia, but, um, because we'reisolated, yeah, I, it's, it's
things stick here, they comethrough and they stick, and they
might not be for good reasons.
And you know, uh, um, overinfatuation with rugby and those

(01:00:13):
sort of idols, and the news isto blame.
Like, you watch the news andyou get to the sports section
and it's 15 minutes of rugby,people talking the same thing
and you think to yourself, man,who's watching this?
I don't even think rugby headswatch rugby anymore.
And you know, there might besome other thing on, like Tour
de France or surfing competition.

(01:00:36):
It's not even there, it doesn'teven reached it.
And even there might be someamazing arts accomplishment,
like the Biennale winning theGolden Lion this year, and it
doesn't even get on the news.
That's crazy, yeah.
And the demographic isn't thedemographic it was.

Gerard Dombroski (01:00:54):
Yeah, I remember back in the day Rota
rua guy sam sudden kayaker, waslike a three time world champ
for like extreme down riverkayak racing three, three years
in a row or something.
And I remember watching it liveand then was like just
disappointed that it never madeany news or anything.

(01:01:16):
You know, like somebody sendingit on a world stage and nobody
cares.
But I'd almost argue that likearchitects have a role to play,
I guess in the conversation too.
Like there's I don't want toshit on NZAA, but like the

(01:01:43):
Institute of Architects, I guessin my opinion would be nice to
communicate to the public morewhat architecture is, and I just
think an awesome thing would bejust booking out like an ad
slot on basic TV for like little30 second snippets of some good
architecture, or like justsowing more seeds to the world

(01:02:03):
yeah, the rest of the world whatarchitecture is.
Nobody actually knows whatarchitecture is and like nobody
gets to inhabit or see mucharchitecture from like the
footpath.
So there's no relationship herelike so, if you don't know what
architecture is, how are yousupposed to choose architecture?

Ben Sutherland (01:02:23):
so I close my mind what people think is good
design yeah, they think it'slike big and I was like oh, this
is great.
This looks great.
Amazing space.
Is that because I've actuallynever experienced design, or
what is it?

Sam Brown (01:02:41):
because it just it's mind-blowing sometimes I think
that's it, and I'd say that mostof the public's interaction
with design or architecture, uh,you're like shows like the
block or grand designs orsomething and like, okay, that's
a fine medium for gettinginformation out there, but it's
visual only you have go in, youhave to experience these things
to actually understand them, youknow.

Matt Liggins (01:03:02):
Yes.
Another thing is too a lot ofthose shows have whack.
They don't even tell the truth.
You've got to know exactly howmuch things are going to cost.
Like Dom I don't know if youknow Glamazina Dom he was just
telling me about he was watchinga show once and they were
talking about having this thingwith all this glass and they
took the budget and straightaway it was not achievable.

(01:03:23):
And you've got to be honest.
Shows like that need to behonest.
Even awards need to say whatthe budget was and how much it
cost, because you can doanything with heaps of money,
but the skill is to do somethingamazing with a small budget.
And if you're not awarding that, you know we're just going to

(01:03:43):
drive the preconception of whatarchitecture costs and what it's
really like away.
And even you know clients haveno idea about the process of
things and what's involved ineach part.
And yeah, there's a lot ofmisinformation that.
Yeah, it would be nice to cleanit up a bit somehow.

Gerard Dombroski (01:04:07):
Yeah, there's another awards category.
Bang for buck.

Matt Liggins (01:04:10):
Oh, definitely, man.
All those awards need to havethe budget or price per square
metre, and yeah, yeah, a lot ofit's very service level A.

Gerard Dombroski (01:04:19):
So the more meat you can put in that potato,
the more meat in that pie thebetter.

Sam Brown (01:04:30):
Meat in the potato, that's an interesting one,
gerard.
Meat in the potato pie.
Meat in the potato Shepherd'spie for dinner.
Shepherd's pie Cool, I mighthave to love and leave you guys
in a minute.

Gerard Dombroski (01:04:46):
As with every podcast, we're starting to get
some real meat towards the endof our time.

Sam Brown (01:04:51):
I know you just start warming up, hey.

Matt Liggins (01:04:53):
Just getting revved up and frustrated.
But yeah, I'd like to end itjust to say, yeah, good to chat,
man.
Like honestly, it's awesome tomeet you guys and it's not in
person, but if I come to Welly,I'll come say hi.
If you come to Auckland, comeand say hi, man.

Sam Brown (01:05:10):
Yeah, grab a beer, be cool.
It's cool.
I mean, we've had this actuallywith a couple of guests where
you know we had them on and then, you know, just continued the
conversation, you know, out inthe wild for want of a better
term, and you know it's reallylovely to kind of continue that
dialogue and make newconnections.
So thanks very much for comingon, matt.

Matt Liggins (01:05:30):
Oh no, thanks, man , I've enjoyed it and yeah, it's
been fun, man, hopefully somepeople got something from this
rant today.
Eh, cool, a bit more, a bitmore ranting needed.
Awesome guys.