Architecture Students Redesign F&B Offices

Forest and Bird, Issue 313, 1 August 2004, Page 44

Architecture Students Redesign F&B Offices

uring the first term of ID this year, 60 students in the third-year class in Sustainable Architecture at the Victoria University School of Architecture were given the task of designing a refurbishment of Forest and Bird’s central office building in Taranaki Street, Wellington. The School of Architecture is keen to engage with the community in this way and it was a great opportunity for Forest and Bird to make our message known to all those students and the staff working with them. Once the assignments were complete the students were required to do presentations of their work, using their drawings. Forest and Bird staff members sat on the review panels along with Victoria University School of Architecture staff and architects in practice. The designs were on display in the School of Architecture’s atrium for a week and the top eight were later judged by the Head of School, Professor Gordon Holden, course director Associate Professor John Storey and Forest and Bird’s general manager Niki

Francis. The winning student was Jesse Matthews who was awarded a Forest and Bird membership and a ‘save the albatross’ t-shirt. His design indicated that he had taken account of Forest and Bird’s brief and designed something that was both practical and creative. Vida Christeller was second while Taylor Pressly and Yifan Zhang were jointly third. Jesse Matthews wrote of his design: ‘I kept the art-deco exterior of the building intact but the interior is completely changed. The activities of Forest and Bird have been condensed into the western side of the building through more efficient use of space, allowing the other half of the building to be rented out, contributing to the financial viability of the society. A series of terraces have been built over the car park to the rear of the building and it is intended that these support a small forest/public park that can be used for education as well as providing a green area in an otherwise hard and gray area of the city. This park also helps to filter the air entering the building, all of which is drawn from this side of the building instead of off busy Taranaki St.