October 1, 2025 • 55 mins
A city can make you breathe easier—or grind your teeth—before you’ve even named why. We follow that feeling from a flimsy townhouse hinge to the rhythm of a street that forces a ute to crawl, exploring how materials, widths, and mixed uses quietly choreograph daily life. In this episode we pull apart modernism’s big promises, tip our hats to classical street smarts, and ask what a genuinely New Zealand urban vernacular might look like—one with corrugate, brick, and crafted facades that hold up to weather, touch, and time.
The heart of the chat is human-scale design. We talk walkability you can feel, where a tight lane and rougher surface set a natural speed limit, and where a dairy under a flat means your day stacks neatly without a dashboard. Medellín’s gondolas and covered escalators show how access can reverse decline when you cut the time penalty for the very people who make a city run. Christchurch’s rebuild sits in the balance: a missed chance for bold spines of transit and tighter hubs, yet proof that even partial wins matter when applied consistently. And yes, fares and parking prices quietly steer behaviour more than slogans ever will.
Inside the front door, priorities tell on us. The “double garage with everything” inflates into a third of a house, while the rooms we actually live in shrink. We argue for smaller, better spaces—nooks, ladders, odd corners that make memories—over storage for cars. Materials matter too: brick can beat timber on cost and presence, corrugate deserves a smarter role in city scales, and layered skins can bring the street back to hand-level detail. If there’s a takeaway, it’s this: design works when it speaks plainly to how people move, meet, and make a day. Subscribe, share with a city-loving mate, and tell us—what one change would make your street slower, safer, and more alive?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
This week's episode is brought to you by Parrot Dogs
(00:02):
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Enjoy.
SPEAKER_01 (00:24):
Shall we do a post-rationalized intro?
While we're still recording?
SPEAKER_00 (00:29):
Yeah, yeah.
In a world.
A world full of full of lessonsto take it upon themselves to
say how much they hate cars.
SPEAKER_01 (00:38):
Hello and welcome back to the pod.
It's been a while for me.
Glad to be back.
Happy to be here.
Today, myself and Sam are pubchatting, and we don't really
know what we're talking about,but we're gonna talk it out and
hope you guys enjoy the ride.
This is our conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
Beautiful.
Great network.
Lovely, mate.
(01:17):
It's interesting living in a youknow, in a townhouse, in a
developer type townhouse thingwhere we're renting at the
moment.
And I reckon this thing wouldn'tbe more than 15 years old.
And everything's been donerather cheap.
On the surface it looks fine.
It's tidy.
And then you realise thateverything is broken.
(01:38):
Every door is broken.
Every window latch is broken.
None of the locks, snib locks onlike the internal doors work,
like all of these little things.
And you can just like that dayone quality is fine, but you
know, like a decade, like theplace is falling apart.
SPEAKER_01 (01:56):
Kitchen cabinets, four doors falling off.
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
It probably doesn't help that our that our baby Hugo
kind of sits in the sits in thekitchen and just opens and
closes drawers all the time.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
Product testing.
SPEAKER_00 (02:09):
Yeah, totally.
I actually feel like soeveryone's got to do this at
some point.
Like if you ever think aboutbuilding a house, go and live in
like a spec home that's 10 yearsold and see how shit it is.
And then make the decisionwhether you want to use MDF.
Do that real real heavy VE.
SPEAKER_01 (02:29):
Yeah, it's it's it's pretty epic-year when you go
back to projects that still lookremote.
It's like oh Yeah.
Like it's it's possible.
Can be done.
SPEAKER_00 (02:38):
Oh dude, totally.
Like and think about our placedown south, like it's you know,
it's not lived in permanently,but because we Airbnb a lot of
the time, you've got a lot ofpeople coming through it
regularly that have no care,ultimately.
SPEAKER_01 (02:53):
Yeah.
Some parties?
SPEAKER_00 (02:55):
Oh, it's a bit small for parties, but even so, like,
you know, you don't really knowwhat people get up to.
But it's like just as good as itwas day one.
And this is like two years on,you know.
I guess I know that's not thatlong, but still it's sort of
quite nice to know that when youdo something of quality, it
stays.
unknown (03:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (03:15):
Yeah, it's sometimes it's worth up speaking those
draw hangers.
SPEAKER_00 (03:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (03:21):
Up spick those draw runners, those hinges?
It's just the little things, uhthat's kitchens can age pretty
quick, eh, once once thingsstart getting out of square.
SPEAKER_00 (03:29):
I guess because your tolerance is so tight that it
becomes and everything's usedall the time and quite not
aggressively, but it's quite alot.
And and yeah, how often have youhad a handful of stuff and
you've like kicked a door drawerclosed or you know, that sort of
thing?
SPEAKER_01 (03:46):
Take something short with your knee.
SPEAKER_00 (03:48):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, man.
Yeah.
That's why a full stainlesssteel kitchen was the dream.
Commercial kitchen.
Our ultimate kitchen one day isjust to have a stain a
commercial kitchen, basically,but at home.
SPEAKER_01 (04:02):
Yeah, big folded, something raw, heavy duty.
SPEAKER_00 (04:07):
Yeah.
And have it designed in a waythat you can just get a hose and
just gun it out to clean it.
SPEAKER_01 (04:13):
Clean room.
Big washroom.
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
Something so disgusting yet satisfying about
like the washdown of acommercial kitchen.
I don't know if you've everworked in kitchens, but it's
disgusting.
But at the same time, it's very,very satisfying.
SPEAKER_01 (04:27):
I did dishes at Metalhorn once.
SPEAKER_00 (04:30):
Oh yeah, nice.
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
For my flight mate who was a chef there.
Military five.
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
Oh man.
Matterhorn was so good.
I wish Wellington stood placeslike that.
SPEAKER_01 (04:42):
Yeah, that was a real nice bottle.
The kitchen was funny.
It was like such leftover space,back alley.
SPEAKER_00 (04:49):
You know we did the um odory in the old toilets, the
old Matterhorn toilets.
SPEAKER_01 (04:54):
Is that all that backs onto?
SPEAKER_00 (04:56):
Yeah.
Well, yes, I never knew thisuntil we did it.
But you know how you'd go,particularly, I think it was the
the gents.
You kind of go through the bar,through this little thing area,
and feel like you kind of go toa little offshoot.
Yeah.
A dead end offshoot.
That backed on to left bank, andthat is now the odory.
SPEAKER_01 (05:15):
Yeah.
Swapping those toilets.
SPEAKER_00 (05:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is pretty cool.
Nice to kind of continue thatlegacy.
SPEAKER_01 (05:23):
Left bank's an interesting development.
The the the the melling moss,the what what is it, the heart?
What timber do they use?
Macrocarpa, microcarpaeverywhere.
SPEAKER_02 (05:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (05:33):
But it's yeah, it's a strange way that how much of a
vertical, deep space it is, howlittle light, how many pigeons
there are.
SPEAKER_00 (05:43):
It doesn't do itself any favours from a lack of
light.
You said that verticality, lackof light.
And it's it being a dead end, Ithink, doesn't help.
If it was a thoroughfare, a bitmore of a thoroughfare, then
maybe it wouldn't suffer somuch.
But having that kind of reallysketchy, dark, dead endy bit,
(06:04):
even though you can get throughit, that goes up notorious
threat.
I think that that does it nofavors, though.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
Yeah.
It was Did you ever go to thatum was it Profit?
Did Profit do that fitter ofstrata?
The Warrington Souder.
Then Goro used to go there for acoffee and a they used to do
this Minaz chicken sandwich.
SPEAKER_02 (06:25):
Nice.
SPEAKER_01 (06:26):
But yeah, other than that, well, I don't think that
lasts very long as a cafe, maybefor obvious reasons.
SPEAKER_00 (06:32):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, like, when theodorie went in there, I was when
Anna did it, I was like, whatare you doing?
This is insanity.
This is the worst place to havea breakfast cafe.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
But it's time, I know a while to go.
SPEAKER_00 (06:43):
Yeah, exactly.
But and then saying that, it'sdone, it's gone gangbusters.
It's done so well.
And I think it's brought it'sbrought so much life into that
area.
So anyway, we're off to a flyer.
What are we actually going totalk about?
SPEAKER_01 (06:55):
Yeah, well, I was thinking about urban planetic,
which you know, we're alreadywe're already talking about
urban planetic.
SPEAKER_00 (07:01):
Here we are, sketchy spaces.
SPEAKER_01 (07:03):
We're well out of the way.
SPEAKER_00 (07:04):
Trying to avoid sketchy spaces.
SPEAKER_01 (07:06):
Yeah.
I just think like I guess overthe over the years you go to
architecture school, everyonetalks up modernism and
celebrates the outrageousarchitecture of the world.
And you don't often hear muchsaid or much in a positive light
said about classicalarchitecture or classical,
(07:28):
maybe, maybe just an urban aboutlots of city layouts of old old
cities.
SPEAKER_00 (07:34):
Yeah, you're saying people aren't championing the
layout of Rome, but everyone'shigh and mighty on Manhattan
kind of Yeah, but then uh peoplewho don't have a degree in
architecture all all love theseother places.
unknown (07:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (07:47):
It's like are we arrogantly unaware or refuse to
listen to half the world thatyou know loves a certain style
of architecture and make it makea point of visiting time and
time again?
SPEAKER_00 (08:01):
Are you talking about architectural aesthetic in
terms of the built environment,or are you talking more about
the cityscape and the plan ofthe city?
SPEAKER_01 (08:08):
I think I think both, both hand in hand.
City city types.
Well, you've got me Corb'sradiant city where you want to
talk down half of Paris and gopark life, like the bigger parks
and towers versus Rome, or notthat I've haven't been to
Europe, so live like going tothe Caribbean too.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
Corb's model in a way has been tested.
And often, oh it's been actuallyit has been tested multiple
times.
And often or it's I think it'sprobably and I'm gonna probably
get shut down heavily for this,Bergen's widely discovered to be
or recognized to be a failure.
And that trying like the humannature and human condition just
(08:50):
doesn't really respond that wellto living in that like high,
high density environment.
SPEAKER_01 (08:55):
Well, it's not even I'd say it's the same density
from an urban scale, but justlike person to person, very
dense.
You're living in a giant towerwith a ginormous amount of
people with beside and aroundyou.
SPEAKER_00 (09:08):
I think it's also a um like a societal thing.
Us as New Zealanders, we're likeso slow to, if ever, going to
adopt that style of living, Ireckon, because we're just we're
well, generationallyindoctrinated into having that
quarter acre dream type concept.
I think we've talked about thisbefore.
Yeah, we do want to that's it,everybody everybody wants their
(09:32):
own bit of space.
And so like even apartmentliving is kind of a little bit
not well, I know, i it it notfrowned upon, but people kind of
go, oh, I don't really want todo that.
Whereas, you know, ininternational cities, it's super
common and people live theirentire lives in those sort of
environments.
They'll probably actually findthe wide open space of a you
(09:52):
know, a freehold six hundredsquare meter patch of land a
pain in the ass because you'vegot to maintain it and you've
got all this other stuff, uhother considerations.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:06):
Yeah.
I guess there's the OscarNehemiah City Bris Brasilia,
Brasilia, or which was built onlike a giant curved road and a
another road.
SPEAKER_02 (10:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:20):
I've just been scrolling around it on um Google
Maps, and there's a lot of razorwire and YouTube fences around
departments.
It's at the stage where the parkhas developed, I guess.
A lot of these uh cities thatwere built on that sort of idea.
The park, which is kind of likecovered all through um sort of
(10:44):
where Russia, the SSSR whateveris a city, another city I was
just looking at in Russia.
Mag Tagorsk is the mostsavior-looking place you've ever
seen.
It's like it's kind of like oneof those modernist principles,
maybe with a little bit more uhdetailing, but very spread out.
(11:05):
It's a little biased, but itlooks pretty good.
And you're gonna be walking along way.
SPEAKER_00 (11:16):
Yeah, of course I've been to Invercargle.
SPEAKER_01 (11:18):
I mean just gone.
SPEAKER_00 (11:19):
Yeah, you'll get very fit.
SPEAKER_01 (11:22):
Well, Invercargo was designed when you knew it was
gonna be a giant city.
So it's like really wide roads,and it was like, oh yeah, one
day this will all be giantbuildings.
SPEAKER_00 (11:31):
It's still it still may yet be there.
It's gonna take off, mate.
It may yet mature.
Still in its infancy.
So do the future.
Do you know what I reckon thethe commonality of or the common
theme that I'm kind of alreadyseeing in these, let's say
designed and not necessarilyfailures of cities, but maybe
(11:53):
more challenging places to live,are is is just that, that they
are they're designed.
The ones cities that are themost successful, probably, are
the ones that are old and haveorganically grown, because
they're grown organically to fitthe way that people want to live
in them.
And they'll you people will comeand try and change that to to
(12:15):
suit modern life.
But ultimately, human nature ishuman nature, regardless of
whether we're in the 21stcentury or in the 17th century,
I think people are probablystill going to want to live in a
very similar manner.
And so I do wonder how much ofthe designing nature of a city
is what leads to itsuncomfortable nature or it's in
(12:35):
a way its downfall, you know.
If you think of Phoenix, forinstance, which I think's
probably widely regarded to beone of the most modern fully
designed places in the fact inthe sense that there was nothing
there, and then it's all beencreated from scratch, and it's
terrible.
Absolutely terrible.
SPEAKER_01 (12:54):
Is that in the States, Phoenix?
SPEAKER_00 (12:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, grids, big roads.
Yeah, that's it.
It's just it's just a giantgrid, big roads, big box retail,
car parks everywhere.
It's designed for the car.
And maybe that the designmentality there was the wrong
one.
But equally, what you're tryingto do is you're trying to force
people in a direction that youwant them to go.
And it's the same idea withCorb's.
Corb's concept is that you'retrying to force people into a
(13:18):
box that they might know what tolive in.
And I remember when we were atuniversity, there was that um I
can't remember what AmericanUniversity, the study was done
at, but it was in a landscapecourse or something, and they
instead of landscaping thegarden, they just left the grass
and then over the course of 12months just saw the natural path
that people took and thendesigned based on the natural
(13:42):
path that people took.
And then they compared it to, Ithink, what students had
designed for that space prior togoing through the concept of
letting it naturally evolve, andit was completely different.
And I think that's the kind ofthing is you're you're quite
often trying to not pigeonholebut direct people in a way that
they don't want to be directedand therefore it fails.
SPEAKER_01 (14:04):
I think just some of these like modernist ideals were
just a bit shipped.
SPEAKER_00 (14:10):
Here's Gerard.
Take down the modernism.
SPEAKER_01 (14:13):
Well, from an urban planning perspective,
definitely.
I think we can appreciate thearchitecture as like a form.
Although I'm saying that, allthe epic modernist buildings
they've all had to be renovatedlike thoroughly because built
(14:34):
terribly.
SPEAKER_00 (14:34):
I think that's there's no there's there's no um
there's no hiding there.
I think that's pretty widelyunderstood that the s the
aesthetic outweighed everything.
SPEAKER_01 (14:44):
Yeah, it's yeah.
I think like from from a cityperspective, you know, like the
extreme lengths to design arounda car, like the super block sort
of idea of blocking functionplanning, you know, you know,
city with house here, shopshere, park there.
Whereas I think a lot of the oldcities, because of so much
(15:06):
layering, not the thingseveryone knows.
I don't need to tell you howsuck eggs.
SPEAKER_02 (15:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:11):
The overlapping of program, a shop on the down for
downstairs, maybe an officeabove that and then apartments
above that.
The the intermingling, theramming together of life
ultimately makes for a moreinteresting place or more
interesting place to be, ratherthan just driving 20 minutes
down the road to get your getyour shit and then driving 20
(15:34):
months back.
SPEAKER_00 (15:35):
Head back to the suburbs, yeah.
Suburban model of living isterrible.
Um and I also think that likeyou like you said, that
cross-pollination of um ofprogram, you know, commercial
mixed with residential, mixedwith hospitality, mixed with
retail, is so important becauseyou, you know, you like I you
(15:58):
know, like I was just saying, Idon't I really don't have to
leave a five-block radius inLyle Bay.
Works here, supermarkets here,houses here, kids' daycares
here, beaches here, you know,the airports here.
And that obviously you don'twant to feel confined to that
radius, but at the same time,there's comfort in knowing that
(16:20):
I don't have to drive 20 minutesto the hut or something to do
shopping.
Whereas a lot of cities aremodelled that way.
Whether you, you know, you'vegot suburbia and then you've got
to travel to the big to the tothe retail precinct and things
like that.
And you can kind of even seethat in I think you have towns
in New Zealand that are evolvingor growing.
SPEAKER_01 (16:42):
Mostly the new one.
SPEAKER_00 (16:43):
Wanaker, for instance, is very much suburban
periphery and then urban centerwith a big box under the toe.
But you have to drive.
You have to drive pretty muchany time you want to go to a
supermarket or to the stores oranything.
You could walk for sure.
It's not a nice environment towalk in, but it could take you
(17:06):
up to 45 minutes to an hour,depending on where you live, you
know.
SPEAKER_01 (17:10):
Down the side of the road, down the bow.
SPEAKER_00 (17:12):
Yeah, and like that's there's not a like it's
not that realistic.
Fine if you're, you know, youngand fit and don't have kids or
whatever, or somewhere to be,but you know, if you've kind of
if you're not any of thosethings, it becomes a bit of a
hindrance in a way.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
Yeah.
I think like some of these oldercities, the how compact things
were just seems to work so muchnicer for walkability and small
narrow roads as well seems to bea big thing.
Like Japan having tiny littleroads and their kids walk to
school or whatever with no realsidewalk.
SPEAKER_00 (17:45):
Well, I think the beautiful thing with that is
like all these older cities aredesigned for either very early
vehicles or not for vehicles atall, right?
Designed for horse and car orwhat have you.
And modern vehicles now are justtoo big.
And so they're forced out, andit kind of actually makes them
far more pleasant places to be.
SPEAKER_01 (18:04):
Yeah, when you go in Japan, you probably don't have
too many RAM trucks like F-1050sor anything.
It's interesting.
I think their plywood is is itnine based on a different
module, 900 by 1800?
So the the beds of their trucksare smaller?
Or like that's why plywooddoesn't fit in most of them
(18:24):
stock Japanese trays on the oldU.
SPEAKER_00 (18:27):
I didn't actually realize that.
Interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (18:30):
So like the the Kai truck or these these smaller
little utility vehicles.
SPEAKER_02 (18:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:35):
Yeah, I I think like the narrow, narrow roads, narrow
windy roads.
And then surface treatment aswell, if you don't differentiate
between road and sidewalk foryou know, city roads anyway,
probably maybe not on themotorway, but like paving and
then when the car's not there,it's understood as a pedestrian
(18:56):
space.
I guess they tried to do it onLower Cuba, but not sure how
successful that's been.
SPEAKER_00 (19:03):
Yeah, I also think that that Lower Cuba section of
of Wellington as well is nothigher.
There's not enough traffic forit to be realized, if you know
what I mean.
It's too much.
Foot traffic and and vehicletraffic, really.
SPEAKER_01 (19:17):
You're talking about the I used to walk up and down
there quite a bit back in theday.
I was I don't know, just a aprick just out of architecture
skills side, like make it make apoint to work walk down the
middle.
But then you get crap.
That floor down there?
SPEAKER_00 (19:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:34):
So I think like it's still too wide.
Like it it needs like a kink inthe middle somewhere, like a
little snake.
So then you can't actually likegun it down there.
SPEAKER_00 (19:46):
But back to the surface treatment thing, like as
well, you think about oldercities.
London's a good example, forinstance, where a lot of the
streets are cobbled.
So you can't really just foot tothe floor down a little urban,
urban street.
One, because like you previouslysaid, they're narrow, they're
windy, and then the surface ispretty unforgiving.
But it makes them like quiteinteresting places to walk.
(20:09):
And it does sort of marry that,you know, walking journey in
with the road quite nicely.
And that, you know, I feel likewe're too bedded to making it
accessible for vehicles first,and then oh, it'd be nice if
people could walk down it, butthat's an afterthought.
We're still a very in NewZealand in particular, a very
vehicle-centric society.
SPEAKER_01 (20:28):
Thousand percent.
And then it brings up a sort ofthe cultural aspect.
If you're then gonna bring in anidea that works awesomely in
Japan or Spain, and then you'regonna try and lamb it into Lower
Cuba, and that's the only placesomebody's ever gonna come in
contact with that type ofdriving.
SPEAKER_02 (20:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
You're flooring it down manas and then you're
hooking a right down Cuba in anorder, but then you're like it
to change all your learnedlessons of driving.
But good luck to you.
SPEAKER_00 (20:59):
Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing too.
I mean, you can see it.
Take the cycleways, forinstance.
The majority of the cycleways inWellington, with the exception
of the one around thewaterfront, I'd say, have been
widely regarded as failures.
Because you're trying to, andnot from a cyclist point of
view, but from pedestrian andvehicle point of view, because
(21:21):
you're you're trying to changeeverybody's mindset and the way
that they expect to drive andoperate in the city, and it's
too located, location-specific.
Whereas if you didn't giveanybody a choice and just did it
blanket everywhere.
So if you just say you had acycleway typology model and it
(21:42):
was just applied throughout thecountry, okay, there'd be a
decade-long of teething period,but then ultimately everybody
would just understand thatthat's the way you operate.
It's like in Germany where therule for the cycleway is I'm I
can't remember if it's on theleft or the right, but if you
bought, you buy, if you'reeveryone, it's a shared
footpath, and if you're cycling,you're on the let's say it's the
(22:03):
left.
And so if you're a pedestrian,you walk on the right, know that
you have to give away tocyclists, and cyclists have
right away, kind of thing.
And that's just understood.
SPEAKER_02 (22:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:13):
Whereas, like universally understood.
Whereas I think the issue thatwe have in New Zealand in
particular, when we're trying toadopt these models of things
that have worked successfullyoverseas is likely super lower
Cuba, we do it in this tinylittle we're too scared to do
it, blanket across an entirecity.
We do it in these tiny littlepockets, and therefore you're
(22:33):
never gonna get anybody likeadapting to it because it's too
incremental, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (22:38):
Do you know what the rule requirements are around
road widths?
Because I wonder if that'slegislation, obviously, probably
becomes quite a factor in tryingto push any idea.
Yeah.
Like do you know High Street inAuckland?
It's got a um so now a littleit's kind of like a service
lane, I guess.
(22:59):
But I think that's a goodexample.
There's just so many peoplewalking across the road all the
time that it's pretty prettyhard to garnet down there.
I wonder if that's the solutionthat you increase the danger or
the increase the perceivedlikelihood of somebody getting
run over.
unknown (23:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (23:15):
One's in Japan having no real sidewalk and
everyone sort of just walkingdown the side or something.
You can't really garnet pastthem unless you're actually a
crazy person and gonna runsomebody over.
SPEAKER_00 (23:27):
Do you think I mean that's but that's the correct
thing?
Yeah, but that's the that's theproblem, is that because with
driver-centric society,everybody who's in a car feels
more entitled than anyone that'snot.
I always find it funny whenyou're walking in the pouring
rain and somebody's in a vehiclewho is not soaking wet and they
don't give way to you to likelet you cross or something, just
(23:50):
just Oh walking me.
Well, it's more just like, justlike be a kind person and don't
like you know, like two secondsout of your day, I don't have to
get soaking wet, but you know,I'm in a car so I can go.
Nah, you're slowing down vibe.
SPEAKER_01 (24:05):
I want to be waiting I want to wait extra two seconds
at the lights.
SPEAKER_02 (24:09):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (24:12):
So many examples of of cities that I I um is
reminded of uh Poundry?
Pound Brie?
Have you heard of that one?
SPEAKER_00 (24:23):
No, is that into Charles and tried to design a
city?
I have heard of this, but Ididn't know what it was called.
SPEAKER_01 (24:32):
So it's a new I I mean it's 100% new, so it was
designed.
I know high-hundry um people whowork in classical buildings, and
although uh I guess planning'squite classical sort of central
sort of square sort of thing.
Although this central square iskind of more of a car park, it's
(24:54):
probably one of the critiques.
SPEAKER_00 (24:57):
It's like Palmerston North.
SPEAKER_01 (24:59):
Yeah, but it was all I guess homemade classical
architecture, but it's a ragingsuccess, which is the crazy
part.
Often we're a when the firstpeople to sort of rip out
somebody making old buildings ornew buildings look old.
SPEAKER_00 (25:13):
But the fact that this has been done in a few
towns now and they're all araging success is why I think
that the even though it's faux,but that h faux kind of historic
nature of the township makepeople a bit more respectful of
it versus whether it was justfully a very contemporary city
or something where it's justconcrete and glass everywhere.
(25:35):
And so you're sort of forcedinto that mentality of fast pace
pure because of thearchitecture.
Whereas I feel older stylearchitecture, for whatever
reason, makes you slow down.
The fact the the ornamentationof it, the texture and the
depth, and you we eitherconsciously or subconsciously
notice that you just move sloweraround that sort of putting, and
(25:58):
maybe it's because I mean peoplepeople like us are probably
stopping to appreciate it.
Others may not be, but it stillhas the same impact impact on
them.
It'd be interesting to know.
This is how much research we didfor this off the cuff episode,
but it'd be interesting to knowif if there is actually any meat
on that bone, because it I've Itotally reckon that that has
(26:19):
that concept.
SPEAKER_01 (26:20):
The the visual complexity of some of the
architecture is undeniably niceto look at.
I'm just reminded again andagain of how maybe it was just
our teachers at uni, how antisort of classical architecture
you're kind of educated to be.
Yay modernism.
(26:41):
Remember the one light bulbmoment I think was when Guy
married in our lecture, was likeI can forget what he said
specifically, but it was alongthe lines of Luke Busier is a
dick.
SPEAKER_00 (26:55):
There we go, Guy, you've we've got you on record.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Can you gave permission to like as a as a
young student who's a non-fanboylike everybody has to be?
Maybe we are actually allowed tothink critically and not um
assume everything we've beentold is is the correct way.
But I think back to oldPoundbury, it shares that mixed
(27:19):
function and um it's calledwindy narrow streets, and they I
think the word relatively uhforward thinking on sort of at
least one-third, I think,affordable housing rather than
like blocking.
I think just if modernism'staught us anything, like
separating a function is maybejust a disaster unless it's like
(27:41):
industry.
We probably won't want a coalmine in the middle of the city
or a giant truck stop in thetown square.
Let's be reasonable.
SPEAKER_00 (27:48):
But then again, there are examples of that that
are highly successful.
You know, those inner cityindustrial precincts that are
turned mixed-use spaces around.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Yeah, mixed use definitely.
But are there are there any thatare still running as industrial?
SPEAKER_00 (28:05):
I think of like the um, you know maybe in Russia.
Well, Bjaga's um power plant skiramp building, whatever that's
called.
You know, like that's probably apretty good pretty good example.
You know, it'd be funny ifBattersea was still uh uh not
Battersea, sorry, if the tapewas still a power station, you
know?
SPEAKER_01 (28:22):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think the mixed-use onesare always seem to be uh on a
surface level of rangingsuccess, because you get an
interesting overlapping ofhistory.
Overlapping of history is kindof maybe just always interesting
because it's you're always askeda question or there's something
(28:42):
to intrigue you, something tolook at.
SPEAKER_02 (28:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:46):
Whereas to make a fully new planned town a
success, I think is a bit of atall order.
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
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feel like you need somewhere togrow organically for it to feel
right, which is which makes thePoundbury success that much more
(29:37):
interesting because it has beenfabricated, but in a way that
seems to like really resonatewith people.
But the organic growth theorganic growth that other thing
as well, on a flip side ofsomething that I want to talk
about from a city plan point ofview, is obviously you can go
you can organically grow too farin the negative, whether you
(29:58):
whether that be Sproul.
sprawl or you push pusheverybody out to the to the
perimeter of the city orwhatever or huge gentrification
zones or social you know socialseparation and all that sort of
thing and um there's actually areally really good PI episode on
this but a city that sort ofwent way too far realized
(30:19):
they're failing encountered itis median so as the city grew
where where's that in Colombiaso like as the city grew they
pushed all the like lowersocioeconomic people into the um
favelas on the outskirts of thecity but they were all the
workers the majority of thepeople that were living in the
(30:40):
favelas were the workers thatneeded to come into the city to
get the centre of the city toget the city to operate but they
weren't doing it because itwould take them too long to
travel.
And so like the city, the centreof the city was starting to
fail.
And so what they did is um andI'm you know I'm shortening the
quality of this but look into itit's really interesting but what
(31:02):
they did is they installedescalators and gondolas.
So they got escalators andcovered escalators open-air
covered escalators and gondolaswhich meant the access from the
outer reaches of the city intothe middle was super easy and
that form of transport waseither free or highly highly
(31:24):
highly subsidised.
And so what it meant is thateverybody started to then be
able to very easily bringthemselves into the city to work
and to get home in time forgeneral life and things like
that.
And it totally transformed theway that the city ran because
instead of it being trying to bethis affluent centre with you
know the lowest socioeconomicpush to the outskirts which
ultimately led to violence andall that sort of thing it
(31:47):
created far more crosspollination and not overnight.
Median's had its issues for manyyears and pretty well documented
but it did help change the waythat that city operated and it
went from like being one of themost dangerous cities in the
world to to not being at allthrough that mechanism.
Interesting is there just one isthere one gondola there's a few
(32:10):
I can't remember the they callthem funiculars maybe is it the
more colourful city yeah butit's cooler the escalators are
are rare you know you'll accessthink of let's just use
Wellington as an example thinkof Mount V but it's well uh yeah
no think Calburn for instancebut there's like from from RO to
(32:33):
from like Row to Karori almostor like RO to um or from the
centre of the city to likeNorthland or something there's
essentially stacked escalatorsthat will access you all the way
there.
So walking's really easy becauseyou just jump on an escalator
and it gets you high becauseit's a very hilly it's a very
hilly city but it gets you highquickly.
(32:54):
Super cool place to visit um andjust see that influence
firsthand as well.
Yeah what an interesting likesolution oh no we kicked out
everyone Yeah but it wasbasically we kicked everybody
out oh now we've got no one toactually make the city hum.
We need to bring everybody backhow are we going to do it?
And that the way that they didit just sort of was a was a
(33:17):
silver bullet solution which waspretty cool.
I mean it could have completelyfailed but in in that case it
didn't which was which isinteresting.
SPEAKER_01 (33:24):
Yeah.
Did you watch that movie notlong ago about Chendah Chandah
Chandihar the city in IndiaChandihar or I'm butchering that
name um City in India by LeeCorb which ended up being quite
a successful city yeah I Iforget the real reason why they
(33:48):
didn't lock off the Westpedestrian anybody access to all
like the government groundswhere where he did all his mega
buildings but I think there wassome issues with that so that
got shut down after a while.
But maybe cities just throwenough T toilet that they're
just going to make it their ownhow much is designed versus how
(34:09):
much is spending it to yourwill.
SPEAKER_00 (34:11):
That's exactly what I've what I've been saying where
I think the the design aspect ofit ultimately doesn't is isn't
that successful and can kind oftake you don't often get the
opportunity to redesign a cityright or to design a city from
scratch.
And like the tragedy that youknow befell Christchurch did
offer the opportunity toredesign Christchurch in a way
(34:35):
and I think they've made somegood they've definitely made
some good moves but they've alsofallen back into old patterns as
well.
The opportunity to try somethingand to make it like really
really interesting.
What would you have done?
I probably would still I have toput me on the spot I still think
it was so heavily focused likesuburban focused and the like
(34:58):
there was all the little likepilot suburban centres and so
that meant that there wasn't asm that much interaction with the
centre of the city.
I think that has changed to adegree but those those pilot
little sort of suburban centresare still there.
I don't know how you change thatcompletely but I think they had
the opportunity to make it moreinwardly focused.
(35:20):
And maybe that was gonna maybethey could have done that with
like better public transportcorridors or easier access light
rail or something like that, youknow, that brought kind of going
off the median model thatbrought more people into the
centre of the city because ifyou if you live out in Rickerton
or something you're probably notgoing to ever go and bother
going into the center of Crushit.
(35:42):
Yeah yeah transport it'stransport's the ticket.
SPEAKER_01 (35:48):
Obviously to a huge degree I wonder what the payback
is on cities around the worldthat make transport like free or
almost free or how much thatboosts your economy.
SPEAKER_00 (36:00):
Just to go back to the median model massive right
because if you're if you'rehaving to travel for work and
it's expensive even busing inWellington you're gonna probably
be spending$10 a day both ways.
And that's not really dependingon you know depending on what
your employment status is it'snot really that tenable.
You know and but if for that isa dollar or something then
(36:23):
you're gonna get way more peopleusing public transport and
ultimately actually realize thebenefit of of the public
transport solution and they didthat after COVID was after COVID
they had I think it was a dollarfares or something for six to
six months might have even beenlonger and so many more people
were using the public transportnetwork and then they put it up
(36:44):
again overnight and thosenumbers just dwindled again.
There's certainly validity inmaking public transport heavily
subsidized or cheap or free.
SPEAKER_01 (36:54):
Well a couple I know that live slightly out of the
city will end up getting a carpark because one person it might
be more affordable than parkingin town but two people it's
cheaper to hire a long term carpark in town and then just drive
them than it is to pub to takepublic transport.
Yeah on the basis that you bothboth live in town.
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
Yeah I mean that's terrible way like that's that it
just should it just shouldn't belike that.
SPEAKER_01 (37:22):
And like and you wonder why you're demographic
that you could you'd make theprice slightly cheaper and then
you're bringing in thatdemographic.
SPEAKER_00 (37:30):
Yeah I liked we were um I did having kids pretty much
car free just walked I mean welived in Mount Vic so it was
pretty close proximity to thecity we just walked everywhere.
20 to 30 minutes walking isnothing.
And I think that was also afterhaving come back from overseas
when you did walk a lot you knoweven an hour's walk to get
(37:51):
somewhere just kind of feel likea big deal.
But then you have kids and youkind of need to use a car a lot
more.
But I'd like to like to move outof that and you know the fact
that we're you know looking atmoving and look at like buying a
new house you know moving into anew house what we're looking at
is somewhere where we can bemore car free like kids can walk
to school or whatever because Ithink that it there there's real
(38:14):
value in that there's somethingthat funny kind of just feels
wrong about getting in a carevery time you need to go
somewhere if you could otherthan that sweet Swatter where
your your kids are sweet to walkwalk to walk to school cafes and
some some loose shops around youthat service some basic needs.
(38:36):
Low Bay baby come move to LowBay Mount Vic would have been
pretty good for that yeah yeahwell the only problem is you're
up top of hill so if you everwant to go to the city you've
got to go down the hill and thenif you want to go home you've
got to go back up the hill.
SPEAKER_01 (38:52):
We used to get sweaty on the way home yeah
that's true yeah back in the daywhen I worked in town I used to
bike um lived around Keogh Bayaround Evans Bay.
Yeah and that was quite nicedidn't use the car a huge
amount.
SPEAKER_00 (39:09):
I thought it was kind of nice like me from me
from the mental side as wellbecause you have this like bit
of fresh air you're blasted bythe wind shat the cobwebs out
bit of time to think you knowbit of podcast time the best
part of my day yeah we're doingRosity of nine to five and
that's really good to you yeahversus that and you and it's
(39:32):
free flowing and you're kind ofyou know you're you're at your
own well versus cruising aroundthe bay winding you here and
you're like that versus gettingin a car getting stuck in
traffic getting frustrated yeahcars are pretty frustrating
maybe that's just the answer toall of us just get rid of cars.
SPEAKER_01 (39:50):
I think I mean I think everyone kind of does
recognise that but listening toold um the archymarath guys it
is a I don't know it's an easysolution I think for architects
to point at if we got rid ofcars.
Everything would be better thesereal utopian ideas.
Yeah I'm I'm hesitant to whileit sounds amazing and probably
as epic and like theNetherlands.
SPEAKER_00 (40:13):
There's a bit of reality.
SPEAKER_01 (40:14):
Yeah quite like her I had a lady go up with me a
while ago for driving to workand I was like trying to explain
to her I was like I work inCalsen and I have to go with
steel and tube or bunnings youknow quite regularly pretty much
every day.
SPEAKER_00 (40:32):
You want to do you want to uh chuck a sheet of
steel on the back of your pushfire well she wasn't taking one
for them out so she just wantedto tell me yeah there I mean
there are some there's are somereal warriors out there and good
on them but you know some ofthem just have to do normal
stuff.
It's um the car thing's funnythough we I'm just designing
(40:52):
concept des working on conceptdesign for a house at the moment
and the clients wanted a doublegarage but they could also fit
bikes motorbikes a workbench anda little gym space and by the
time you do that in reality thatthing's 60 to 70 square meters
minimum and a third of yourhouse if not more is just garage
(41:15):
and so I just said you can havea single garage and a big single
garage but you're having asingle garage and I present
actually presented it to themyesterday and I thought there'd
be you know I thought there'd belike big pushback because they
were very like prominent intheir brief must have double
garage blah blah blah blah blahand I said like look you guys
don't really have a space I youknow part outside and they were
(41:37):
like no cool I get it so I thinkit's an it's certainly a nice to
have but I think it's also veryeasy to sway people in the other
direction.
If you kind of give them nooption then it does help
alleviate a little bit we'll dothat sometimes.
Yeah when you're psycho if youwant this big garage it's gonna
be like a couple hundredthousand dollars more reckon
(41:59):
your budget can stretch that farand they're like nah yeah might
as well just buy a car can gooutside.
Buy another main car yeah whatdo you reckon's first car goes
outside and then do you put alike if the budget's looking
tight is the next thing you puta kit outside like get rid of a
get rid of one of the bedroomshow you can sleep in a tent in
the backyard sometimes sometimesit feels like I could make that
(42:21):
decision that's there's there'srisk of spiraling into whole
different conversations but Ithink room sizes sometimes are
like take the piss.
SPEAKER_01 (42:30):
Like as a kid you don't need a giant room.
We had one house when we movedfarms and we I had the office as
my bedroom.
Yeah I I kind of quite enjoyedthat space.
It's quite like really small onewhole room was like bookshelf.
SPEAKER_00 (42:46):
I loved my bedroom memories I loved my bedroom
growing up I lived in the atticand I could stand up in one
location when you came it was Ihad a ladder.
So I climbed a ladder and you Icould stand at the pitch of the
gable and then my room was inthe pitch.
Built in bed tupped into acorner and then just had little
like and it was a weird shaperoom.
(43:07):
But just all these littlecrannies.
You'd never and speak going backto the planning versus the
organic kind of thing, it's areally hard space to actually
design that and the reason thatit was there is because our
house got too small and dad hadto try and find space and he was
just like I'll bung one of thekids up bung bung one of the
kids up on the roof like justfound all the available space he
(43:29):
could in the roof and turned itinto a room and it was epic.
I loved that bedroom so much.
SPEAKER_01 (43:33):
But that grew organically you know yeah yeah
those leftover spaces can be canbe epic.
SPEAKER_00 (43:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:40):
I used to love um sleeping under the stairs in one
of our houses.
Harry Potter I was very houseoff from it yes but I I just
liked weird small spaces though.
I think that's maybe justreflective of me and the things
running up designing interestingspaces that I don't know there's
(44:02):
you could get real architecturalwanky and say it was probably
more the scale of a of a smallchild.
SPEAKER_00 (44:07):
So it was uh more meaningful maybe I I did I did
quite enjoy yesterday in this inthe meeting with these clients
when they said oh we don't wanta big bedroom we just want space
for a bed but that's it just abed and I was like well that's
quite refreshing.
Whereas most people are like ina master sorry main bedroom
people are always like oh itneeds to be big and need you
(44:30):
know space for this that and thenext thing and ultimately what
are you doing there?
SPEAKER_01 (44:34):
Sleeping you know whatever else but it's not like
you're in there all day you knowwell designing and playing
sometimes just makes peoplethink in terms of squares and
boxes like those uh in sectiondifferent different shape
spaces.
Do you know there's a project byMDRDV who probably have some
(44:55):
nice urban design thoughts.
Yeah they did a I think it was apavilion sort of building it was
more of a sculpture than ausable functioning building but
it was a big square in elevationand then it was tectress shapes
overlapping each other and theyall painted different colours
and um one had like beard.
(45:15):
It was essentially a house insection was there's a nice uh
some nice thought ideas that Iprogram stacked rather than um
rather than like linear.
Yeah there should space to livelike you wouldn't live on it but
I think it raises someinteresting ideas of overlapping
spaces vertically in weird ways.
(45:36):
If we go back to urban briefly Ifound a whole bunch of examples
of essentially towns that werebuilt in modernist style that
had then been reclassified youcould say there's one in one in
Paris Robinson which is likemodernist urbanist town which
(45:58):
then this little nailey marewith an extreme vision um like
rebuilt the whole town center,town square and then I guess
everything else sort of followedsuit.
Potsdam in Germany like it waseast Berlin so it got um Z Arch
and made it very modernist, verysquared and that eventually post
(46:23):
World Fall got turned back intoa I think it's still it's almost
finished being reclassified.
Read into Yeah it's it's prettyinteresting it's like there's
classical architecture andclassical layout which I think
fundamentally works.
It's hard to fault other thanarchitects like to reinvent
(46:46):
wheels and come up withinteresting ideas.
But it's like and then you'vegot these modernist ideas and
it's like where's where's thein-between where you can fulfill
the basic principles and make acity and a town a nice place
that people want to be.
And sometimes I wonder ifFranklin Wright is the the
junction between the two wherehe designed things that had some
(47:09):
classical references, somemodern features features overall
extreme visual density and justepically beautiful and epically
complex buildings.
SPEAKER_00 (47:23):
Although do do all roads lead to Frank not not as
not as city obviously probably Imean we're not sure he's the
godfather right I have a littlefinger puppet of him on my
fridge talk to you while you'rebrick um about sometimes
sometimes your brick your brickmust be longer what length just
(47:48):
this is an absolute segue abouttrying to trying to decide which
dimension of brick I like themost thinner and longer
traditional we're running a verytraditional brick on me and
Ben's project at the moment veryclassic brick shape.
SPEAKER_01 (48:04):
How are you finding that's nice we're adding in
trying trying to bring in someof that visual complexity we
keep preaching about while Ikeep preaching about it are you
is it red brick?
SPEAKER_00 (48:15):
No cream sand sand brick I was actually surprised
at how affordable brick ischeaper than timber clad in if
you're gonna do a stainedvertical shiplap it's way
cheaper than that and installrate yeah how much more
expensive than cargo so thenumber I got I was chatting to a
QS I just I was just like canyou just give me some ballpark
(48:38):
figures just out of interest andit was like about 240 a square
install for steel 350 to 450 asquare install for brick and
that spectrum is based onwhether you go for a standard
brick or something a little bitmore funky.
And then 550 a square meter fora Bodo I was just like give me a
(49:01):
Bodo as a comparison which isinteresting.
So there you go a little oysterfor that.
SPEAKER_01 (49:08):
Yeah sometimes we put too much Farrogate on
buildings on the first guy toput corrigate on buildings.
SPEAKER_00 (49:13):
Yeah it's not it is nice though and you know it has
many benefits.
SPEAKER_01 (49:18):
Yeah yeah I I think we'll maybe we're taught taught
to be seduced by cheapmaterials.
SPEAKER_00 (49:25):
I'd argue that corrigate is the one true
post-colonial anyway Kiwivernacular.
SPEAKER_01 (49:31):
Yeah well I think that's the the conclusion of the
conversation isn't it's theclassic style I think works
really well in Europe but it'sif you if you're trying to make
an authentic it's not gonnahappen space of New Zealand like
what is what is our likeinteresting but still beautiful
vernacular New Zealand?
(49:52):
Is it Arrowtown?
SPEAKER_00 (49:54):
I was about to say Arrowtown like Corrugate bit
after little um galvedevelopment as you come it's off
to the left yeah yeah that one'scool I I like that place.
SPEAKER_01 (50:07):
Could you imagine like bringing some of that could
you use corrugate in likemulti-story buildings in like a
real interesting way?
SPEAKER_00 (50:15):
In the middle of a city yeah like a New Zealand I
think any any New Zealand anyplanning department will have a
field day with you to be honestbut I like the idea.
Well I think windows glass suckssometimes like too many
buildings are just curtain wallsof glass yeah maybe that's why
(50:38):
classical civic buildings aremore interesting because there's
clearly just more to look atCrosson is it Cross and do have
done really interesting stuffwith like laser cutting
corrugate creating screens outof it and like adding adding to
adding to the material with alike s you know more texture.
Yeah I think I've I've I've donea couple of buildings that have
(50:58):
done that it's really cool.
SPEAKER_01 (51:01):
Um New York as we speak and give me a picture of
this building that had like realnaily sort of almost art louveau
aluminium screen along theground floor and they had sort
of post or like ornate detailingbut it was actually glass like
real complex glass detailing itwas a Hurt Song to be on
(51:23):
building.
Which we found out afterwards.
Yeah just like the on the faceof it you're like oh that's a
glass building but then you takea second look and you're like
holy shit there's there's a lotgoing on there.
SPEAKER_02 (51:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (51:34):
Double skin facade with this glass beam like and
then this crazy cast aluminiumsort of facade screen fence
gate.
SPEAKER_00 (51:42):
That's why they're one of the best better than the
rest.
SPEAKER_01 (51:45):
Better than the rest.
Hertzlog is we could do aconversation on Hertz loger
itself because I think thatScandinavia Scandinavian sort of
big timber post and beambuilding type of it's so
interesting maybe tying intoyour mass timber ideal.
Yeah that style of multi-storybuilding can be pretty exciting.
(52:06):
Coupled with some galve somegalve corrigate in there and
some windows in the centre cityit's not allowed to do galve in
so many places it's sodisappointing.
Well you're often allowed to doit people just don't give
warranties for it.
SPEAKER_00 (52:22):
Well it's well it's that you can't put it by the C
and but I'd say the majority ofland covenants I've read won't
let you use it.
SPEAKER_01 (52:32):
We have a shitload of that don't they?
SPEAKER_00 (52:34):
Yeah land of covenants of covenants the LRV
index is never got covenantsit's actually not that everyone
goes on about bangs on about howbad it is it's not that bad.
Little design review boards wellwe designed a we designed a
building in Hanley's farm that'shopefully going on site in
(52:56):
November and the clients werelike oh screw the like here's
the design guide but you knowultimately just do what you want
the design guide's so boringlyprescriptive for Hanley's farm.
So we just designed a cool buildwell I think it's a cool
building and it went through thedesign review panel and we got
the report back passed gotthrough got the report back and
(53:16):
I think there were 13 areas oflike 20 of noncompliance and I
was just like because I wasreading the report and I was
like oh my god I'm gonna have tochange everything.
And then at the bottom it justhad a statement that was just
like architectural meritoutweighs all noncompliance and
that was it.
And I was like sorry it isn'tthat hard people just think it
(53:37):
think that it is therefore don'tactually try and push the
barrier.
Like just do it.
SPEAKER_01 (53:42):
Yeah well that's my one of my giant pet peefs when
people don't even attempt topush the barrier.
SPEAKER_00 (53:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (53:47):
Don't know until you find out exactly people having
having a hellish time withdesign review boards.
SPEAKER_00 (53:54):
Yeah I mean like maybe we got lucky but yeah No
mate you're just an excellentarchitect thank you thank thank
you thank you Gerard.
SPEAKER_01 (54:02):
I saw you win another award yesterday yeah
German one.
SPEAKER_00 (54:06):
That's fun give me a list of where all these awards
are gotta start applying for Ithink the thing is like you you
get one international nod andthen they just all kind of keep
coming just sort of I can dojust reply to the emails to the
of Hashtag there's a lot offishing ones a lot of ones that
are Some are so expensive now.
SPEAKER_01 (54:27):
Yeah this one was expensive but I had one ring me
and I'll it was like 500 five oh416 to apply to submit.
SPEAKER_00 (54:38):
Yeah but they were clean they were like I don't
know maybe just a good salesdepartment that they actually
ring architects all around theworld yeah yeah so was it the um
yeah we got rang uh rang theother day but I think it was the
DNA awards or something inParis.
They were ringing they wereringing around.
(54:59):
Makes you what makes you wonderif they're legit.
And then you kind of like searchand you're like oh that's pretty
legit but also yeah it's a lotof money gives my money yeah
that's why design's greatbecause it's like a hundred
pound and it's uh yeah yeah I'mallergic to paying for things
cool yeah man that's a goodcheck it was a pretty good check
This week's episode is brought to you by Parrot Dogs
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SPEAKER_01 (00:24):
Shall we do a post-rationalized intro?
While we're still recording?
SPEAKER_00 (00:29):
Yeah, yeah.
In a world.
A world full of full of lessonsto take it upon themselves to
say how much they hate cars.
SPEAKER_01 (00:38):
Hello and welcome back to the pod.
It's been a while for me.
Glad to be back.
Happy to be here.
Today, myself and Sam are pubchatting, and we don't really
know what we're talking about,but we're gonna talk it out and
hope you guys enjoy the ride.
This is our conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
Beautiful.
Great network.
Lovely, mate.
(01:17):
It's interesting living in a youknow, in a townhouse, in a
developer type townhouse thingwhere we're renting at the
moment.
And I reckon this thing wouldn'tbe more than 15 years old.
And everything's been donerather cheap.
On the surface it looks fine.
It's tidy.
And then you realise thateverything is broken.
(01:38):
Every door is broken.
Every window latch is broken.
None of the locks, snib locks onlike the internal doors work,
like all of these little things.
And you can just like that dayone quality is fine, but you
know, like a decade, like theplace is falling apart.
SPEAKER_01 (01:56):
Kitchen cabinets, four doors falling off.
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
It probably doesn't help that our that our baby Hugo
kind of sits in the sits in thekitchen and just opens and
closes drawers all the time.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
Product testing.
SPEAKER_00 (02:09):
Yeah, totally.
I actually feel like soeveryone's got to do this at
some point.
Like if you ever think aboutbuilding a house, go and live in
like a spec home that's 10 yearsold and see how shit it is.
And then make the decisionwhether you want to use MDF.
Do that real real heavy VE.
SPEAKER_01 (02:29):
Yeah, it's it's it's pretty epic-year when you go
back to projects that still lookremote.
It's like oh Yeah.
Like it's it's possible.
Can be done.
SPEAKER_00 (02:38):
Oh dude, totally.
Like and think about our placedown south, like it's you know,
it's not lived in permanently,but because we Airbnb a lot of
the time, you've got a lot ofpeople coming through it
regularly that have no care,ultimately.
SPEAKER_01 (02:53):
Yeah.
Some parties?
SPEAKER_00 (02:55):
Oh, it's a bit small for parties, but even so, like,
you know, you don't really knowwhat people get up to.
But it's like just as good as itwas day one.
And this is like two years on,you know.
I guess I know that's not thatlong, but still it's sort of
quite nice to know that when youdo something of quality, it
stays.
unknown (03:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (03:15):
Yeah, it's sometimes it's worth up speaking those
draw hangers.
SPEAKER_00 (03:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (03:21):
Up spick those draw runners, those hinges?
It's just the little things, uhthat's kitchens can age pretty
quick, eh, once once thingsstart getting out of square.
SPEAKER_00 (03:29):
I guess because your tolerance is so tight that it
becomes and everything's usedall the time and quite not
aggressively, but it's quite alot.
And and yeah, how often have youhad a handful of stuff and
you've like kicked a door drawerclosed or you know, that sort of
thing?
SPEAKER_01 (03:46):
Take something short with your knee.
SPEAKER_00 (03:48):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, man.
Yeah.
That's why a full stainlesssteel kitchen was the dream.
Commercial kitchen.
Our ultimate kitchen one day isjust to have a stain a
commercial kitchen, basically,but at home.
SPEAKER_01 (04:02):
Yeah, big folded, something raw, heavy duty.
SPEAKER_00 (04:07):
Yeah.
And have it designed in a waythat you can just get a hose and
just gun it out to clean it.
SPEAKER_01 (04:13):
Clean room.
Big washroom.
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
Something so disgusting yet satisfying about
like the washdown of acommercial kitchen.
I don't know if you've everworked in kitchens, but it's
disgusting.
But at the same time, it's very,very satisfying.
SPEAKER_01 (04:27):
I did dishes at Metalhorn once.
SPEAKER_00 (04:30):
Oh yeah, nice.
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
For my flight mate who was a chef there.
Military five.
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
Oh man.
Matterhorn was so good.
I wish Wellington stood placeslike that.
SPEAKER_01 (04:42):
Yeah, that was a real nice bottle.
The kitchen was funny.
It was like such leftover space,back alley.
SPEAKER_00 (04:49):
You know we did the um odory in the old toilets, the
old Matterhorn toilets.
SPEAKER_01 (04:54):
Is that all that backs onto?
SPEAKER_00 (04:56):
Yeah.
Well, yes, I never knew thisuntil we did it.
But you know how you'd go,particularly, I think it was the
the gents.
You kind of go through the bar,through this little thing area,
and feel like you kind of go toa little offshoot.
Yeah.
A dead end offshoot.
That backed on to left bank, andthat is now the odory.
SPEAKER_01 (05:15):
Yeah.
Swapping those toilets.
SPEAKER_00 (05:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is pretty cool.
Nice to kind of continue thatlegacy.
SPEAKER_01 (05:23):
Left bank's an interesting development.
The the the the melling moss,the what what is it, the heart?
What timber do they use?
Macrocarpa, microcarpaeverywhere.
SPEAKER_02 (05:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (05:33):
But it's yeah, it's a strange way that how much of a
vertical, deep space it is, howlittle light, how many pigeons
there are.
SPEAKER_00 (05:43):
It doesn't do itself any favours from a lack of
light.
You said that verticality, lackof light.
And it's it being a dead end, Ithink, doesn't help.
If it was a thoroughfare, a bitmore of a thoroughfare, then
maybe it wouldn't suffer somuch.
But having that kind of reallysketchy, dark, dead endy bit,
(06:04):
even though you can get throughit, that goes up notorious
threat.
I think that that does it nofavors, though.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
Yeah.
It was Did you ever go to thatum was it Profit?
Did Profit do that fitter ofstrata?
The Warrington Souder.
Then Goro used to go there for acoffee and a they used to do
this Minaz chicken sandwich.
SPEAKER_02 (06:25):
Nice.
SPEAKER_01 (06:26):
But yeah, other than that, well, I don't think that
lasts very long as a cafe, maybefor obvious reasons.
SPEAKER_00 (06:32):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, like, when theodorie went in there, I was when
Anna did it, I was like, whatare you doing?
This is insanity.
This is the worst place to havea breakfast cafe.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
But it's time, I know a while to go.
SPEAKER_00 (06:43):
Yeah, exactly.
But and then saying that, it'sdone, it's gone gangbusters.
It's done so well.
And I think it's brought it'sbrought so much life into that
area.
So anyway, we're off to a flyer.
What are we actually going totalk about?
SPEAKER_01 (06:55):
Yeah, well, I was thinking about urban planetic,
which you know, we're alreadywe're already talking about
urban planetic.
SPEAKER_00 (07:01):
Here we are, sketchy spaces.
SPEAKER_01 (07:03):
We're well out of the way.
SPEAKER_00 (07:04):
Trying to avoid sketchy spaces.
SPEAKER_01 (07:06):
Yeah.
I just think like I guess overthe over the years you go to
architecture school, everyonetalks up modernism and
celebrates the outrageousarchitecture of the world.
And you don't often hear muchsaid or much in a positive light
said about classicalarchitecture or classical,
(07:28):
maybe, maybe just an urban aboutlots of city layouts of old old
cities.
SPEAKER_00 (07:34):
Yeah, you're saying people aren't championing the
layout of Rome, but everyone'shigh and mighty on Manhattan
kind of Yeah, but then uh peoplewho don't have a degree in
architecture all all love theseother places.
unknown (07:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (07:47):
It's like are we arrogantly unaware or refuse to
listen to half the world thatyou know loves a certain style
of architecture and make it makea point of visiting time and
time again?
SPEAKER_00 (08:01):
Are you talking about architectural aesthetic in
terms of the built environment,or are you talking more about
the cityscape and the plan ofthe city?
SPEAKER_01 (08:08):
I think I think both, both hand in hand.
City city types.
Well, you've got me Corb'sradiant city where you want to
talk down half of Paris and gopark life, like the bigger parks
and towers versus Rome, or notthat I've haven't been to
Europe, so live like going tothe Caribbean too.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
Corb's model in a way has been tested.
And often, oh it's been actuallyit has been tested multiple
times.
And often or it's I think it'sprobably and I'm gonna probably
get shut down heavily for this,Bergen's widely discovered to be
or recognized to be a failure.
And that trying like the humannature and human condition just
(08:50):
doesn't really respond that wellto living in that like high,
high density environment.
SPEAKER_01 (08:55):
Well, it's not even I'd say it's the same density
from an urban scale, but justlike person to person, very
dense.
You're living in a giant towerwith a ginormous amount of
people with beside and aroundyou.
SPEAKER_00 (09:08):
I think it's also a um like a societal thing.
Us as New Zealanders, we're likeso slow to, if ever, going to
adopt that style of living, Ireckon, because we're just we're
well, generationallyindoctrinated into having that
quarter acre dream type concept.
I think we've talked about thisbefore.
Yeah, we do want to that's it,everybody everybody wants their
(09:32):
own bit of space.
And so like even apartmentliving is kind of a little bit
not well, I know, i it it notfrowned upon, but people kind of
go, oh, I don't really want todo that.
Whereas, you know, ininternational cities, it's super
common and people live theirentire lives in those sort of
environments.
They'll probably actually findthe wide open space of a you
(09:52):
know, a freehold six hundredsquare meter patch of land a
pain in the ass because you'vegot to maintain it and you've
got all this other stuff, uhother considerations.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:06):
Yeah.
I guess there's the OscarNehemiah City Bris Brasilia,
Brasilia, or which was built onlike a giant curved road and a
another road.
SPEAKER_02 (10:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:20):
I've just been scrolling around it on um Google
Maps, and there's a lot of razorwire and YouTube fences around
departments.
It's at the stage where the parkhas developed, I guess.
A lot of these uh cities thatwere built on that sort of idea.
The park, which is kind of likecovered all through um sort of
(10:44):
where Russia, the SSSR whateveris a city, another city I was
just looking at in Russia.
Mag Tagorsk is the mostsavior-looking place you've ever
seen.
It's like it's kind of like oneof those modernist principles,
maybe with a little bit more uhdetailing, but very spread out.
(11:05):
It's a little biased, but itlooks pretty good.
And you're gonna be walking along way.
SPEAKER_00 (11:16):
Yeah, of course I've been to Invercargle.
SPEAKER_01 (11:18):
I mean just gone.
SPEAKER_00 (11:19):
Yeah, you'll get very fit.
SPEAKER_01 (11:22):
Well, Invercargo was designed when you knew it was
gonna be a giant city.
So it's like really wide roads,and it was like, oh yeah, one
day this will all be giantbuildings.
SPEAKER_00 (11:31):
It's still it still may yet be there.
It's gonna take off, mate.
It may yet mature.
Still in its infancy.
So do the future.
Do you know what I reckon thethe commonality of or the common
theme that I'm kind of alreadyseeing in these, let's say
designed and not necessarilyfailures of cities, but maybe
(11:53):
more challenging places to live,are is is just that, that they
are they're designed.
The ones cities that are themost successful, probably, are
the ones that are old and haveorganically grown, because
they're grown organically to fitthe way that people want to live
in them.
And they'll you people will comeand try and change that to to
(12:15):
suit modern life.
But ultimately, human nature ishuman nature, regardless of
whether we're in the 21stcentury or in the 17th century,
I think people are probablystill going to want to live in a
very similar manner.
And so I do wonder how much ofthe designing nature of a city
is what leads to itsuncomfortable nature or it's in
(12:35):
a way its downfall, you know.
If you think of Phoenix, forinstance, which I think's
probably widely regarded to beone of the most modern fully
designed places in the fact inthe sense that there was nothing
there, and then it's all beencreated from scratch, and it's
terrible.
Absolutely terrible.
SPEAKER_01 (12:54):
Is that in the States, Phoenix?
SPEAKER_00 (12:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, grids, big roads.
Yeah, that's it.
It's just it's just a giantgrid, big roads, big box retail,
car parks everywhere.
It's designed for the car.
And maybe that the designmentality there was the wrong
one.
But equally, what you're tryingto do is you're trying to force
people in a direction that youwant them to go.
And it's the same idea withCorb's.
Corb's concept is that you'retrying to force people into a
(13:18):
box that they might know what tolive in.
And I remember when we were atuniversity, there was that um I
can't remember what AmericanUniversity, the study was done
at, but it was in a landscapecourse or something, and they
instead of landscaping thegarden, they just left the grass
and then over the course of 12months just saw the natural path
that people took and thendesigned based on the natural
(13:42):
path that people took.
And then they compared it to, Ithink, what students had
designed for that space prior togoing through the concept of
letting it naturally evolve, andit was completely different.
And I think that's the kind ofthing is you're you're quite
often trying to not pigeonholebut direct people in a way that
they don't want to be directedand therefore it fails.
SPEAKER_01 (14:04):
I think just some of these like modernist ideals were
just a bit shipped.
SPEAKER_00 (14:10):
Here's Gerard.
Take down the modernism.
SPEAKER_01 (14:13):
Well, from an urban planning perspective,
definitely.
I think we can appreciate thearchitecture as like a form.
Although I'm saying that, allthe epic modernist buildings
they've all had to be renovatedlike thoroughly because built
(14:34):
terribly.
SPEAKER_00 (14:34):
I think that's there's no there's there's no um
there's no hiding there.
I think that's pretty widelyunderstood that the s the
aesthetic outweighed everything.
SPEAKER_01 (14:44):
Yeah, it's yeah.
I think like from from a cityperspective, you know, like the
extreme lengths to design arounda car, like the super block sort
of idea of blocking functionplanning, you know, you know,
city with house here, shopshere, park there.
Whereas I think a lot of the oldcities, because of so much
(15:06):
layering, not the thingseveryone knows.
I don't need to tell you howsuck eggs.
SPEAKER_02 (15:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:11):
The overlapping of program, a shop on the down for
downstairs, maybe an officeabove that and then apartments
above that.
The the intermingling, theramming together of life
ultimately makes for a moreinteresting place or more
interesting place to be, ratherthan just driving 20 minutes
down the road to get your getyour shit and then driving 20
(15:34):
months back.
SPEAKER_00 (15:35):
Head back to the suburbs, yeah.
Suburban model of living isterrible.
Um and I also think that likeyou like you said, that
cross-pollination of um ofprogram, you know, commercial
mixed with residential, mixedwith hospitality, mixed with
retail, is so important becauseyou, you know, you like I you
(15:58):
know, like I was just saying, Idon't I really don't have to
leave a five-block radius inLyle Bay.
Works here, supermarkets here,houses here, kids' daycares
here, beaches here, you know,the airports here.
And that obviously you don'twant to feel confined to that
radius, but at the same time,there's comfort in knowing that
(16:20):
I don't have to drive 20 minutesto the hut or something to do
shopping.
Whereas a lot of cities aremodelled that way.
Whether you, you know, you'vegot suburbia and then you've got
to travel to the big to the tothe retail precinct and things
like that.
And you can kind of even seethat in I think you have towns
in New Zealand that are evolvingor growing.
SPEAKER_01 (16:42):
Mostly the new one.
SPEAKER_00 (16:43):
Wanaker, for instance, is very much suburban
periphery and then urban centerwith a big box under the toe.
But you have to drive.
You have to drive pretty muchany time you want to go to a
supermarket or to the stores oranything.
You could walk for sure.
It's not a nice environment towalk in, but it could take you
(17:06):
up to 45 minutes to an hour,depending on where you live, you
know.
SPEAKER_01 (17:10):
Down the side of the road, down the bow.
SPEAKER_00 (17:12):
Yeah, and like that's there's not a like it's
not that realistic.
Fine if you're, you know, youngand fit and don't have kids or
whatever, or somewhere to be,but you know, if you've kind of
if you're not any of thosethings, it becomes a bit of a
hindrance in a way.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
Yeah.
I think like some of these oldercities, the how compact things
were just seems to work so muchnicer for walkability and small
narrow roads as well seems to bea big thing.
Like Japan having tiny littleroads and their kids walk to
school or whatever with no realsidewalk.
SPEAKER_00 (17:45):
Well, I think the beautiful thing with that is
like all these older cities aredesigned for either very early
vehicles or not for vehicles atall, right?
Designed for horse and car orwhat have you.
And modern vehicles now are justtoo big.
And so they're forced out, andit kind of actually makes them
far more pleasant places to be.
SPEAKER_01 (18:04):
Yeah, when you go in Japan, you probably don't have
too many RAM trucks like F-1050sor anything.
It's interesting.
I think their plywood is is itnine based on a different
module, 900 by 1800?
So the the beds of their trucksare smaller?
Or like that's why plywooddoesn't fit in most of them
(18:24):
stock Japanese trays on the oldU.
SPEAKER_00 (18:27):
I didn't actually realize that.
Interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (18:30):
So like the the Kai truck or these these smaller
little utility vehicles.
SPEAKER_02 (18:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:35):
Yeah, I I think like the narrow, narrow roads, narrow
windy roads.
And then surface treatment aswell, if you don't differentiate
between road and sidewalk foryou know, city roads anyway,
probably maybe not on themotorway, but like paving and
then when the car's not there,it's understood as a pedestrian
(18:56):
space.
I guess they tried to do it onLower Cuba, but not sure how
successful that's been.
SPEAKER_00 (19:03):
Yeah, I also think that that Lower Cuba section of
of Wellington as well is nothigher.
There's not enough traffic forit to be realized, if you know
what I mean.
It's too much.
Foot traffic and and vehicletraffic, really.
SPEAKER_01 (19:17):
You're talking about the I used to walk up and down
there quite a bit back in theday.
I was I don't know, just a aprick just out of architecture
skills side, like make it make apoint to work walk down the
middle.
But then you get crap.
That floor down there?
SPEAKER_00 (19:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:34):
So I think like it's still too wide.
Like it it needs like a kink inthe middle somewhere, like a
little snake.
So then you can't actually likegun it down there.
SPEAKER_00 (19:46):
But back to the surface treatment thing, like as
well, you think about oldercities.
London's a good example, forinstance, where a lot of the
streets are cobbled.
So you can't really just foot tothe floor down a little urban,
urban street.
One, because like you previouslysaid, they're narrow, they're
windy, and then the surface ispretty unforgiving.
But it makes them like quiteinteresting places to walk.
(20:09):
And it does sort of marry that,you know, walking journey in
with the road quite nicely.
And that, you know, I feel likewe're too bedded to making it
accessible for vehicles first,and then oh, it'd be nice if
people could walk down it, butthat's an afterthought.
We're still a very in NewZealand in particular, a very
vehicle-centric society.
SPEAKER_01 (20:28):
Thousand percent.
And then it brings up a sort ofthe cultural aspect.
If you're then gonna bring in anidea that works awesomely in
Japan or Spain, and then you'regonna try and lamb it into Lower
Cuba, and that's the only placesomebody's ever gonna come in
contact with that type ofdriving.
SPEAKER_02 (20:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
You're flooring it down manas and then you're
hooking a right down Cuba in anorder, but then you're like it
to change all your learnedlessons of driving.
But good luck to you.
SPEAKER_00 (20:59):
Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing too.
I mean, you can see it.
Take the cycleways, forinstance.
The majority of the cycleways inWellington, with the exception
of the one around thewaterfront, I'd say, have been
widely regarded as failures.
Because you're trying to, andnot from a cyclist point of
view, but from pedestrian andvehicle point of view, because
(21:21):
you're you're trying to changeeverybody's mindset and the way
that they expect to drive andoperate in the city, and it's
too located, location-specific.
Whereas if you didn't giveanybody a choice and just did it
blanket everywhere.
So if you just say you had acycleway typology model and it
(21:42):
was just applied throughout thecountry, okay, there'd be a
decade-long of teething period,but then ultimately everybody
would just understand thatthat's the way you operate.
It's like in Germany where therule for the cycleway is I'm I
can't remember if it's on theleft or the right, but if you
bought, you buy, if you'reeveryone, it's a shared
footpath, and if you're cycling,you're on the let's say it's the
(22:03):
left.
And so if you're a pedestrian,you walk on the right, know that
you have to give away tocyclists, and cyclists have
right away, kind of thing.
And that's just understood.
SPEAKER_02 (22:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:13):
Whereas, like universally understood.
Whereas I think the issue thatwe have in New Zealand in
particular, when we're trying toadopt these models of things
that have worked successfullyoverseas is likely super lower
Cuba, we do it in this tinylittle we're too scared to do
it, blanket across an entirecity.
We do it in these tiny littlepockets, and therefore you're
(22:33):
never gonna get anybody likeadapting to it because it's too
incremental, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (22:38):
Do you know what the rule requirements are around
road widths?
Because I wonder if that'slegislation, obviously, probably
becomes quite a factor in tryingto push any idea.
Yeah.
Like do you know High Street inAuckland?
It's got a um so now a littleit's kind of like a service
lane, I guess.
(22:59):
But I think that's a goodexample.
There's just so many peoplewalking across the road all the
time that it's pretty prettyhard to garnet down there.
I wonder if that's the solutionthat you increase the danger or
the increase the perceivedlikelihood of somebody getting
run over.
unknown (23:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (23:15):
One's in Japan having no real sidewalk and
everyone sort of just walkingdown the side or something.
You can't really garnet pastthem unless you're actually a
crazy person and gonna runsomebody over.
SPEAKER_00 (23:27):
Do you think I mean that's but that's the correct
thing?
Yeah, but that's the that's theproblem, is that because with
driver-centric society,everybody who's in a car feels
more entitled than anyone that'snot.
I always find it funny whenyou're walking in the pouring
rain and somebody's in a vehiclewho is not soaking wet and they
don't give way to you to likelet you cross or something, just
(23:50):
just Oh walking me.
Well, it's more just like, justlike be a kind person and don't
like you know, like two secondsout of your day, I don't have to
get soaking wet, but you know,I'm in a car so I can go.
Nah, you're slowing down vibe.
SPEAKER_01 (24:05):
I want to be waiting I want to wait extra two seconds
at the lights.
SPEAKER_02 (24:09):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (24:12):
So many examples of of cities that I I um is
reminded of uh Poundry?
Pound Brie?
Have you heard of that one?
SPEAKER_00 (24:23):
No, is that into Charles and tried to design a
city?
I have heard of this, but Ididn't know what it was called.
SPEAKER_01 (24:32):
So it's a new I I mean it's 100% new, so it was
designed.
I know high-hundry um people whowork in classical buildings, and
although uh I guess planning'squite classical sort of central
sort of square sort of thing.
Although this central square iskind of more of a car park, it's
(24:54):
probably one of the critiques.
SPEAKER_00 (24:57):
It's like Palmerston North.
SPEAKER_01 (24:59):
Yeah, but it was all I guess homemade classical
architecture, but it's a ragingsuccess, which is the crazy
part.
Often we're a when the firstpeople to sort of rip out
somebody making old buildings ornew buildings look old.
SPEAKER_00 (25:13):
But the fact that this has been done in a few
towns now and they're all araging success is why I think
that the even though it's faux,but that h faux kind of historic
nature of the township makepeople a bit more respectful of
it versus whether it was justfully a very contemporary city
or something where it's justconcrete and glass everywhere.
(25:35):
And so you're sort of forcedinto that mentality of fast pace
pure because of thearchitecture.
Whereas I feel older stylearchitecture, for whatever
reason, makes you slow down.
The fact the the ornamentationof it, the texture and the
depth, and you we eitherconsciously or subconsciously
notice that you just move sloweraround that sort of putting, and
(25:58):
maybe it's because I mean peoplepeople like us are probably
stopping to appreciate it.
Others may not be, but it stillhas the same impact impact on
them.
It'd be interesting to know.
This is how much research we didfor this off the cuff episode,
but it'd be interesting to knowif if there is actually any meat
on that bone, because it I've Itotally reckon that that has
(26:19):
that concept.
SPEAKER_01 (26:20):
The the visual complexity of some of the
architecture is undeniably niceto look at.
I'm just reminded again andagain of how maybe it was just
our teachers at uni, how antisort of classical architecture
you're kind of educated to be.
Yay modernism.
(26:41):
Remember the one light bulbmoment I think was when Guy
married in our lecture, was likeI can forget what he said
specifically, but it was alongthe lines of Luke Busier is a
dick.
SPEAKER_00 (26:55):
There we go, Guy, you've we've got you on record.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Can you gave permission to like as a as a
young student who's a non-fanboylike everybody has to be?
Maybe we are actually allowed tothink critically and not um
assume everything we've beentold is is the correct way.
But I think back to oldPoundbury, it shares that mixed
(27:19):
function and um it's calledwindy narrow streets, and they I
think the word relatively uhforward thinking on sort of at
least one-third, I think,affordable housing rather than
like blocking.
I think just if modernism'staught us anything, like
separating a function is maybejust a disaster unless it's like
(27:41):
industry.
We probably won't want a coalmine in the middle of the city
or a giant truck stop in thetown square.
Let's be reasonable.
SPEAKER_00 (27:48):
But then again, there are examples of that that
are highly successful.
You know, those inner cityindustrial precincts that are
turned mixed-use spaces around.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Yeah, mixed use definitely.
But are there are there any thatare still running as industrial?
SPEAKER_00 (28:05):
I think of like the um, you know maybe in Russia.
Well, Bjaga's um power plant skiramp building, whatever that's
called.
You know, like that's probably apretty good pretty good example.
You know, it'd be funny ifBattersea was still uh uh not
Battersea, sorry, if the tapewas still a power station, you
know?
SPEAKER_01 (28:22):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think the mixed-use onesare always seem to be uh on a
surface level of rangingsuccess, because you get an
interesting overlapping ofhistory.
Overlapping of history is kindof maybe just always interesting
because it's you're always askeda question or there's something
(28:42):
to intrigue you, something tolook at.
SPEAKER_02 (28:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:46):
Whereas to make a fully new planned town a
success, I think is a bit of atall order.
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
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feel like you need somewhere togrow organically for it to feel
right, which is which makes thePoundbury success that much more
(29:37):
interesting because it has beenfabricated, but in a way that
seems to like really resonatewith people.
But the organic growth theorganic growth that other thing
as well, on a flip side ofsomething that I want to talk
about from a city plan point ofview, is obviously you can go
you can organically grow too farin the negative, whether you
(29:58):
whether that be Sproul.
sprawl or you push pusheverybody out to the to the
perimeter of the city orwhatever or huge gentrification
zones or social you know socialseparation and all that sort of
thing and um there's actually areally really good PI episode on
this but a city that sort ofwent way too far realized
(30:19):
they're failing encountered itis median so as the city grew
where where's that in Colombiaso like as the city grew they
pushed all the like lowersocioeconomic people into the um
favelas on the outskirts of thecity but they were all the
workers the majority of thepeople that were living in the
(30:40):
favelas were the workers thatneeded to come into the city to
get the centre of the city toget the city to operate but they
weren't doing it because itwould take them too long to
travel.
And so like the city, the centreof the city was starting to
fail.
And so what they did is um andI'm you know I'm shortening the
quality of this but look into itit's really interesting but what
(31:02):
they did is they installedescalators and gondolas.
So they got escalators andcovered escalators open-air
covered escalators and gondolaswhich meant the access from the
outer reaches of the city intothe middle was super easy and
that form of transport waseither free or highly highly
(31:24):
highly subsidised.
And so what it meant is thateverybody started to then be
able to very easily bringthemselves into the city to work
and to get home in time forgeneral life and things like
that.
And it totally transformed theway that the city ran because
instead of it being trying to bethis affluent centre with you
know the lowest socioeconomicpush to the outskirts which
ultimately led to violence andall that sort of thing it
(31:47):
created far more crosspollination and not overnight.
Median's had its issues for manyyears and pretty well documented
but it did help change the waythat that city operated and it
went from like being one of themost dangerous cities in the
world to to not being at allthrough that mechanism.
Interesting is there just one isthere one gondola there's a few
(32:10):
I can't remember the they callthem funiculars maybe is it the
more colourful city yeah butit's cooler the escalators are
are rare you know you'll accessthink of let's just use
Wellington as an example thinkof Mount V but it's well uh yeah
no think Calburn for instancebut there's like from from RO to
(32:33):
from like Row to Karori almostor like RO to um or from the
centre of the city to likeNorthland or something there's
essentially stacked escalatorsthat will access you all the way
there.
So walking's really easy becauseyou just jump on an escalator
and it gets you high becauseit's a very hilly it's a very
hilly city but it gets you highquickly.
(32:54):
Super cool place to visit um andjust see that influence
firsthand as well.
Yeah what an interesting likesolution oh no we kicked out
everyone Yeah but it wasbasically we kicked everybody
out oh now we've got no one toactually make the city hum.
We need to bring everybody backhow are we going to do it?
And that the way that they didit just sort of was a was a
(33:17):
silver bullet solution which waspretty cool.
I mean it could have completelyfailed but in in that case it
didn't which was which isinteresting.
SPEAKER_01 (33:24):
Yeah.
Did you watch that movie notlong ago about Chendah Chandah
Chandihar the city in IndiaChandihar or I'm butchering that
name um City in India by LeeCorb which ended up being quite
a successful city yeah I Iforget the real reason why they
(33:48):
didn't lock off the Westpedestrian anybody access to all
like the government groundswhere where he did all his mega
buildings but I think there wassome issues with that so that
got shut down after a while.
But maybe cities just throwenough T toilet that they're
just going to make it their ownhow much is designed versus how
(34:09):
much is spending it to yourwill.
SPEAKER_00 (34:11):
That's exactly what I've what I've been saying where
I think the the design aspect ofit ultimately doesn't is isn't
that successful and can kind oftake you don't often get the
opportunity to redesign a cityright or to design a city from
scratch.
And like the tragedy that youknow befell Christchurch did
offer the opportunity toredesign Christchurch in a way
(34:35):
and I think they've made somegood they've definitely made
some good moves but they've alsofallen back into old patterns as
well.
The opportunity to try somethingand to make it like really
really interesting.
What would you have done?
I probably would still I have toput me on the spot I still think
it was so heavily focused likesuburban focused and the like
(34:58):
there was all the little likepilot suburban centres and so
that meant that there wasn't asm that much interaction with the
centre of the city.
I think that has changed to adegree but those those pilot
little sort of suburban centresare still there.
I don't know how you change thatcompletely but I think they had
the opportunity to make it moreinwardly focused.
(35:20):
And maybe that was gonna maybethey could have done that with
like better public transportcorridors or easier access light
rail or something like that, youknow, that brought kind of going
off the median model thatbrought more people into the
centre of the city because ifyou if you live out in Rickerton
or something you're probably notgoing to ever go and bother
going into the center of Crushit.
(35:42):
Yeah yeah transport it'stransport's the ticket.
SPEAKER_01 (35:48):
Obviously to a huge degree I wonder what the payback
is on cities around the worldthat make transport like free or
almost free or how much thatboosts your economy.
SPEAKER_00 (36:00):
Just to go back to the median model massive right
because if you're if you'rehaving to travel for work and
it's expensive even busing inWellington you're gonna probably
be spending$10 a day both ways.
And that's not really dependingon you know depending on what
your employment status is it'snot really that tenable.
You know and but if for that isa dollar or something then
(36:23):
you're gonna get way more peopleusing public transport and
ultimately actually realize thebenefit of of the public
transport solution and they didthat after COVID was after COVID
they had I think it was a dollarfares or something for six to
six months might have even beenlonger and so many more people
were using the public transportnetwork and then they put it up
(36:44):
again overnight and thosenumbers just dwindled again.
There's certainly validity inmaking public transport heavily
subsidized or cheap or free.
SPEAKER_01 (36:54):
Well a couple I know that live slightly out of the
city will end up getting a carpark because one person it might
be more affordable than parkingin town but two people it's
cheaper to hire a long term carpark in town and then just drive
them than it is to pub to takepublic transport.
Yeah on the basis that you bothboth live in town.
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
Yeah I mean that's terrible way like that's that it
just should it just shouldn't belike that.
SPEAKER_01 (37:22):
And like and you wonder why you're demographic
that you could you'd make theprice slightly cheaper and then
you're bringing in thatdemographic.
SPEAKER_00 (37:30):
Yeah I liked we were um I did having kids pretty much
car free just walked I mean welived in Mount Vic so it was
pretty close proximity to thecity we just walked everywhere.
20 to 30 minutes walking isnothing.
And I think that was also afterhaving come back from overseas
when you did walk a lot you knoweven an hour's walk to get
(37:51):
somewhere just kind of feel likea big deal.
But then you have kids and youkind of need to use a car a lot
more.
But I'd like to like to move outof that and you know the fact
that we're you know looking atmoving and look at like buying a
new house you know moving into anew house what we're looking at
is somewhere where we can bemore car free like kids can walk
to school or whatever because Ithink that it there there's real
(38:14):
value in that there's somethingthat funny kind of just feels
wrong about getting in a carevery time you need to go
somewhere if you could otherthan that sweet Swatter where
your your kids are sweet to walkwalk to walk to school cafes and
some some loose shops around youthat service some basic needs.
(38:36):
Low Bay baby come move to LowBay Mount Vic would have been
pretty good for that yeah yeahwell the only problem is you're
up top of hill so if you everwant to go to the city you've
got to go down the hill and thenif you want to go home you've
got to go back up the hill.
SPEAKER_01 (38:52):
We used to get sweaty on the way home yeah
that's true yeah back in the daywhen I worked in town I used to
bike um lived around Keogh Bayaround Evans Bay.
Yeah and that was quite nicedidn't use the car a huge
amount.
SPEAKER_00 (39:09):
I thought it was kind of nice like me from me
from the mental side as wellbecause you have this like bit
of fresh air you're blasted bythe wind shat the cobwebs out
bit of time to think you knowbit of podcast time the best
part of my day yeah we're doingRosity of nine to five and
that's really good to you yeahversus that and you and it's
(39:32):
free flowing and you're kind ofyou know you're you're at your
own well versus cruising aroundthe bay winding you here and
you're like that versus gettingin a car getting stuck in
traffic getting frustrated yeahcars are pretty frustrating
maybe that's just the answer toall of us just get rid of cars.
SPEAKER_01 (39:50):
I think I mean I think everyone kind of does
recognise that but listening toold um the archymarath guys it
is a I don't know it's an easysolution I think for architects
to point at if we got rid ofcars.
Everything would be better thesereal utopian ideas.
Yeah I'm I'm hesitant to whileit sounds amazing and probably
as epic and like theNetherlands.
SPEAKER_00 (40:13):
There's a bit of reality.
SPEAKER_01 (40:14):
Yeah quite like her I had a lady go up with me a
while ago for driving to workand I was like trying to explain
to her I was like I work inCalsen and I have to go with
steel and tube or bunnings youknow quite regularly pretty much
every day.
SPEAKER_00 (40:32):
You want to do you want to uh chuck a sheet of
steel on the back of your pushfire well she wasn't taking one
for them out so she just wantedto tell me yeah there I mean
there are some there's are somereal warriors out there and good
on them but you know some ofthem just have to do normal
stuff.
It's um the car thing's funnythough we I'm just designing
(40:52):
concept des working on conceptdesign for a house at the moment
and the clients wanted a doublegarage but they could also fit
bikes motorbikes a workbench anda little gym space and by the
time you do that in reality thatthing's 60 to 70 square meters
minimum and a third of yourhouse if not more is just garage
(41:15):
and so I just said you can havea single garage and a big single
garage but you're having asingle garage and I present
actually presented it to themyesterday and I thought there'd
be you know I thought there'd belike big pushback because they
were very like prominent intheir brief must have double
garage blah blah blah blah blahand I said like look you guys
don't really have a space I youknow part outside and they were
(41:37):
like no cool I get it so I thinkit's an it's certainly a nice to
have but I think it's also veryeasy to sway people in the other
direction.
If you kind of give them nooption then it does help
alleviate a little bit we'll dothat sometimes.
Yeah when you're psycho if youwant this big garage it's gonna
be like a couple hundredthousand dollars more reckon
(41:59):
your budget can stretch that farand they're like nah yeah might
as well just buy a car can gooutside.
Buy another main car yeah whatdo you reckon's first car goes
outside and then do you put alike if the budget's looking
tight is the next thing you puta kit outside like get rid of a
get rid of one of the bedroomshow you can sleep in a tent in
the backyard sometimes sometimesit feels like I could make that
(42:21):
decision that's there's there'srisk of spiraling into whole
different conversations but Ithink room sizes sometimes are
like take the piss.
SPEAKER_01 (42:30):
Like as a kid you don't need a giant room.
We had one house when we movedfarms and we I had the office as
my bedroom.
Yeah I I kind of quite enjoyedthat space.
It's quite like really small onewhole room was like bookshelf.
SPEAKER_00 (42:46):
I loved my bedroom memories I loved my bedroom
growing up I lived in the atticand I could stand up in one
location when you came it was Ihad a ladder.
So I climbed a ladder and you Icould stand at the pitch of the
gable and then my room was inthe pitch.
Built in bed tupped into acorner and then just had little
like and it was a weird shaperoom.
(43:07):
But just all these littlecrannies.
You'd never and speak going backto the planning versus the
organic kind of thing, it's areally hard space to actually
design that and the reason thatit was there is because our
house got too small and dad hadto try and find space and he was
just like I'll bung one of thekids up bung bung one of the
kids up on the roof like justfound all the available space he
(43:29):
could in the roof and turned itinto a room and it was epic.
I loved that bedroom so much.
SPEAKER_01 (43:33):
But that grew organically you know yeah yeah
those leftover spaces can be canbe epic.
SPEAKER_00 (43:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:40):
I used to love um sleeping under the stairs in one
of our houses.
Harry Potter I was very houseoff from it yes but I I just
liked weird small spaces though.
I think that's maybe justreflective of me and the things
running up designing interestingspaces that I don't know there's
(44:02):
you could get real architecturalwanky and say it was probably
more the scale of a of a smallchild.
SPEAKER_00 (44:07):
So it was uh more meaningful maybe I I did I did
quite enjoy yesterday in this inthe meeting with these clients
when they said oh we don't wanta big bedroom we just want space
for a bed but that's it just abed and I was like well that's
quite refreshing.
Whereas most people are like ina master sorry main bedroom
people are always like oh itneeds to be big and need you
(44:30):
know space for this that and thenext thing and ultimately what
are you doing there?
SPEAKER_01 (44:34):
Sleeping you know whatever else but it's not like
you're in there all day you knowwell designing and playing
sometimes just makes peoplethink in terms of squares and
boxes like those uh in sectiondifferent different shape
spaces.
Do you know there's a project byMDRDV who probably have some
(44:55):
nice urban design thoughts.
Yeah they did a I think it was apavilion sort of building it was
more of a sculpture than ausable functioning building but
it was a big square in elevationand then it was tectress shapes
overlapping each other and theyall painted different colours
and um one had like beard.
(45:15):
It was essentially a house insection was there's a nice uh
some nice thought ideas that Iprogram stacked rather than um
rather than like linear.
Yeah there should space to livelike you wouldn't live on it but
I think it raises someinteresting ideas of overlapping
spaces vertically in weird ways.
(45:36):
If we go back to urban briefly Ifound a whole bunch of examples
of essentially towns that werebuilt in modernist style that
had then been reclassified youcould say there's one in one in
Paris Robinson which is likemodernist urbanist town which
(45:58):
then this little nailey marewith an extreme vision um like
rebuilt the whole town center,town square and then I guess
everything else sort of followedsuit.
Potsdam in Germany like it waseast Berlin so it got um Z Arch
and made it very modernist, verysquared and that eventually post
(46:23):
World Fall got turned back intoa I think it's still it's almost
finished being reclassified.
Read into Yeah it's it's prettyinteresting it's like there's
classical architecture andclassical layout which I think
fundamentally works.
It's hard to fault other thanarchitects like to reinvent
(46:46):
wheels and come up withinteresting ideas.
But it's like and then you'vegot these modernist ideas and
it's like where's where's thein-between where you can fulfill
the basic principles and make acity and a town a nice place
that people want to be.
And sometimes I wonder ifFranklin Wright is the the
junction between the two wherehe designed things that had some
(47:09):
classical references, somemodern features features overall
extreme visual density and justepically beautiful and epically
complex buildings.
SPEAKER_00 (47:23):
Although do do all roads lead to Frank not not as
not as city obviously probably Imean we're not sure he's the
godfather right I have a littlefinger puppet of him on my
fridge talk to you while you'rebrick um about sometimes
sometimes your brick your brickmust be longer what length just
(47:48):
this is an absolute segue abouttrying to trying to decide which
dimension of brick I like themost thinner and longer
traditional we're running a verytraditional brick on me and
Ben's project at the moment veryclassic brick shape.
SPEAKER_01 (48:04):
How are you finding that's nice we're adding in
trying trying to bring in someof that visual complexity we
keep preaching about while Ikeep preaching about it are you
is it red brick?
SPEAKER_00 (48:15):
No cream sand sand brick I was actually surprised
at how affordable brick ischeaper than timber clad in if
you're gonna do a stainedvertical shiplap it's way
cheaper than that and installrate yeah how much more
expensive than cargo so thenumber I got I was chatting to a
QS I just I was just like canyou just give me some ballpark
(48:38):
figures just out of interest andit was like about 240 a square
install for steel 350 to 450 asquare install for brick and
that spectrum is based onwhether you go for a standard
brick or something a little bitmore funky.
And then 550 a square meter fora Bodo I was just like give me a
(49:01):
Bodo as a comparison which isinteresting.
So there you go a little oysterfor that.
SPEAKER_01 (49:08):
Yeah sometimes we put too much Farrogate on
buildings on the first guy toput corrigate on buildings.
SPEAKER_00 (49:13):
Yeah it's not it is nice though and you know it has
many benefits.
SPEAKER_01 (49:18):
Yeah yeah I I think we'll maybe we're taught taught
to be seduced by cheapmaterials.
SPEAKER_00 (49:25):
I'd argue that corrigate is the one true
post-colonial anyway Kiwivernacular.
SPEAKER_01 (49:31):
Yeah well I think that's the the conclusion of the
conversation isn't it's theclassic style I think works
really well in Europe but it'sif you if you're trying to make
an authentic it's not gonnahappen space of New Zealand like
what is what is our likeinteresting but still beautiful
vernacular New Zealand?
(49:52):
Is it Arrowtown?
SPEAKER_00 (49:54):
I was about to say Arrowtown like Corrugate bit
after little um galvedevelopment as you come it's off
to the left yeah yeah that one'scool I I like that place.
SPEAKER_01 (50:07):
Could you imagine like bringing some of that could
you use corrugate in likemulti-story buildings in like a
real interesting way?
SPEAKER_00 (50:15):
In the middle of a city yeah like a New Zealand I
think any any New Zealand anyplanning department will have a
field day with you to be honestbut I like the idea.
Well I think windows glass suckssometimes like too many
buildings are just curtain wallsof glass yeah maybe that's why
(50:38):
classical civic buildings aremore interesting because there's
clearly just more to look atCrosson is it Cross and do have
done really interesting stuffwith like laser cutting
corrugate creating screens outof it and like adding adding to
adding to the material with alike s you know more texture.
Yeah I think I've I've I've donea couple of buildings that have
(50:58):
done that it's really cool.
SPEAKER_01 (51:01):
Um New York as we speak and give me a picture of
this building that had like realnaily sort of almost art louveau
aluminium screen along theground floor and they had sort
of post or like ornate detailingbut it was actually glass like
real complex glass detailing itwas a Hurt Song to be on
(51:23):
building.
Which we found out afterwards.
Yeah just like the on the faceof it you're like oh that's a
glass building but then you takea second look and you're like
holy shit there's there's a lotgoing on there.
SPEAKER_02 (51:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (51:34):
Double skin facade with this glass beam like and
then this crazy cast aluminiumsort of facade screen fence
gate.
SPEAKER_00 (51:42):
That's why they're one of the best better than the
rest.
SPEAKER_01 (51:45):
Better than the rest.
Hertzlog is we could do aconversation on Hertz loger
itself because I think thatScandinavia Scandinavian sort of
big timber post and beambuilding type of it's so
interesting maybe tying intoyour mass timber ideal.
Yeah that style of multi-storybuilding can be pretty exciting.
(52:06):
Coupled with some galve somegalve corrigate in there and
some windows in the centre cityit's not allowed to do galve in
so many places it's sodisappointing.
Well you're often allowed to doit people just don't give
warranties for it.
SPEAKER_00 (52:22):
Well it's well it's that you can't put it by the C
and but I'd say the majority ofland covenants I've read won't
let you use it.
SPEAKER_01 (52:32):
We have a shitload of that don't they?
SPEAKER_00 (52:34):
Yeah land of covenants of covenants the LRV
index is never got covenantsit's actually not that everyone
goes on about bangs on about howbad it is it's not that bad.
Little design review boards wellwe designed a we designed a
building in Hanley's farm that'shopefully going on site in
(52:56):
November and the clients werelike oh screw the like here's
the design guide but you knowultimately just do what you want
the design guide's so boringlyprescriptive for Hanley's farm.
So we just designed a cool buildwell I think it's a cool
building and it went through thedesign review panel and we got
the report back passed gotthrough got the report back and
(53:16):
I think there were 13 areas oflike 20 of noncompliance and I
was just like because I wasreading the report and I was
like oh my god I'm gonna have tochange everything.
And then at the bottom it justhad a statement that was just
like architectural meritoutweighs all noncompliance and
that was it.
And I was like sorry it isn'tthat hard people just think it
(53:37):
think that it is therefore don'tactually try and push the
barrier.
Like just do it.
SPEAKER_01 (53:42):
Yeah well that's my one of my giant pet peefs when
people don't even attempt topush the barrier.
SPEAKER_00 (53:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (53:47):
Don't know until you find out exactly people having
having a hellish time withdesign review boards.
SPEAKER_00 (53:54):
Yeah I mean like maybe we got lucky but yeah No
mate you're just an excellentarchitect thank you thank thank
you thank you Gerard.
SPEAKER_01 (54:02):
I saw you win another award yesterday yeah
German one.
SPEAKER_00 (54:06):
That's fun give me a list of where all these awards
are gotta start applying for Ithink the thing is like you you
get one international nod andthen they just all kind of keep
coming just sort of I can dojust reply to the emails to the
of Hashtag there's a lot offishing ones a lot of ones that
are Some are so expensive now.
SPEAKER_01 (54:27):
Yeah this one was expensive but I had one ring me
and I'll it was like 500 five oh416 to apply to submit.
SPEAKER_00 (54:38):
Yeah but they were clean they were like I don't
know maybe just a good salesdepartment that they actually
ring architects all around theworld yeah yeah so was it the um
yeah we got rang uh rang theother day but I think it was the
DNA awards or something inParis.
They were ringing they wereringing around.
(54:59):
Makes you what makes you wonderif they're legit.
And then you kind of like searchand you're like oh that's pretty
legit but also yeah it's a lotof money gives my money yeah
that's why design's greatbecause it's like a hundred
pound and it's uh yeah yeah I'mallergic to paying for things
cool yeah man that's a goodcheck it was a pretty good check
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