Whakakotahi
Auckland City Business district, the domain of a montage of busy perspectives influenced by culture and experience, simultaneous chaos disguised as routine. We live together, oblivious of how others are experiencing time and space, trapped in our own heads, framed. My intervention facilitates the importance of community, and represents the history of Britomart, historically known as Commercial Bay before the land was reclaimed. The grid-like form is an insult to the natural forms of the original shoreline, a geometric contrast. Generosity of sustenance, the Pipis(Paphies australis shellfish), abundantly, lined the bank between the mouth of Te Waihorotiu and Point Britomart of the Waitematā Harbour, the heart of the Fort lane. A gift to the people of Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. My architectural design proposal ‘Whakakotahi,’(All-Embracing,) carries forward the narrative of generosity, a spatial quality which gives much needed relational sustenance. Ignorance is a limiting frame, a forced perspective through our own eyes, as film snatches our freedom of the narrative, manipulating our perspective to a line with the producers. The form of ‘Whakakotahi’ peers subtlety over the building line, in the character of a Pipi rearing its head interrupting the sand’s surface. A protest against modern traditional architecture, representing the hidden narratives of the land. The farming of Pipis themselves is an action of unity, a place to gather while conversing.
