Category: New Zealand

Cuddle Class

There has been an enormous amount of coverage of Air New Zealand’s recently announced Cuddle Class.

Most has been extremely positive and as a loyal Air New Zealand traveller I am eagerly awaiting it being rolled out on the Auckland-London route (about 12 months away I think!)

To me the great things about the announcement are firstly how closely it followed the announcement of Air New Zealand winning airline of the year and in so doing helped to reinforce this. Secondly, it is great to see good old kiwi ingenuity challenging the norm and leading the world.

Having been fortunate to have travelled extensively I agree wholeheartedly that Air New Zealand is the best!

And the Winner is…

On Friday night I had the great pleasure of presenting the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards.

In summary the judges were most impressed:

Again this year, the standard has been high and the jury was impressed with the strong and compelling quality of the verbal presentations and the professionalism of finalists in what can be a nerve-wracking situation. We saw a diverse array of presentations over the two days ranging from those firmly rooted in the best traditions of architecture to more theoretical speculations that questioned the boundaries of the discipline itself. The winner, however, stood out in terms of strong theoretical exploration with great breadth and depth. The scheme excelled on multiple levels from its proposition right through to the detailed resolution of the work.

However, there can only be one winner and that was Simon Harrison from Victoria University:

Urban neighbours
Encouraging formation of a genuine neighbourhood in a high-rise inner city apartment building through inclusion of quality ‘in between’ spaces and design measures that allow a diverse range of inhabitants.
JURORS’ COMMENTS
A compelling investigation of physical, social and commercial aspects of architecture, taking a fresh look at private, public and in-between realms of high rise, high-density living.

Urban Neighbours

Encouraging formation of a genuine neighbourhood in a high-rise inner city apartment building through inclusion of quality ‘in between’ spaces and design measures that allow a diverse range of inhabitants.

Juror’s Comments

A compelling investigation of physical, social and commercial aspects of architecture, taking a fresh look at private, public and in-between realms of high rise, high-density living.

The Highly Commended Prize was awarded to a joint entry from Sebastian Hamilton & Barrington Gohns of Auckland University:

Other Than Human

This highly interactive project explores sensory engagement and seeks to develop a new means of spatial engagement. It uses different technologies and tools including ‘the haptic’ to centre the user in their environment.

Juror’s Comments

Good engagement in different skill sets and disciplines, a high degree of resolution in built outcome and presentation and an exemplary process of mediating between theoretical propositions about spatial engagement and working at one-to-one scale.

Overall it was a fantastic night and a great achievement for all 12 finalists.

NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards

Over the last two days 12 students from Auckland University, Unitec and Victoria University have been presenting their final year project as part of the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards.

Graphisoft New Zealand is extremely proud to be the sponsor of this event and I have enjoyed attending a number of the presentations.

The presentation quality of this years awards is outstanding. The diverse range of schemes from the Porosity of Architecture to Extra Sensory Experiences of Architecture to a collapsible Whare  is certain to make the judging interesting.

Tonight is the official award ceremony where one student will be picked as the best in New Zealand –  I have chosen my winner but having not attended all the presentations I could well be (and most likely will be) wrong!

Congratulations must be extended to all 12 finalists as reaching this stage is a fantastic success in itself:

2009 Finalists:

UNITEC Department of Architecture
Callum Dowie
Alisha Patel
Jayshree Magan
Elisabeth Tryland
AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY – School of Architecture and Planning
Sebastian Hamilton
Barrington Gohns
Lyannie Tran
John Hawkins
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON – Faculty of Architecture and Design
Daniel Davis
Simon Harrison
Charlotte Hoare
Frances Vessey

UNITEC Department of Architecture

  • Callum Dowie
  • Alisha Patel
  • Jayshree Magan
  • Elisabeth Tryland

AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY – School of Architecture and Planning

  • Sebastian Hamilton
  • Barrington Gohns
  • Lyannie Tran
  • John Hawkins

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON – Faculty of Architecture and Design

  • Daniel Davis
  • Simon Harrison
  • Charlotte Hoare
  • Frances Vessey

Cadimage Solutions – 20 Years Young!

20 years ago I was 14 years old and just finishing my first year of high school – the biggest decisions of my short life were likely to do with which subjects I’d take in fourth form (Art and Woodwork for anyone who cares!)

However, 20 years ago was also the day that Murray and Sue Pearson founded Cadimage Solutions – the business I started working for 13 years ago and which I purchased 3 years ago.

In 1989 New Zealand was still in a recession following the crash of 87 and everyone told Murray it was not a good time to start a business – Murray’s opinion: it can only get better!

Twenty years later it is almost fitting to have survived another recession and be looking forward to returning to strong growth in the coming years.

Over the years Cadimage has had some remarkable achievements and now consists of a group of four companies with both local and global focus’s (foci?)

The Team at Cadimage (both past and present) have built a strong customer driven business which we can all be proud of.

New Zealand’s economy is built on small business and I personally think 20 years is a remarkable achievement.

I’d therefore like to thank everyone including the founders, past employees, current employees and most importantly our customers both here and around the globe to contributing to this success!

Cheers to 20 more!

1957

Some of the readers of this blog will click immediately to the significance of 1957.

Yes, that’s right! 1957 was the last time Otago held the Ranfurly Shield.

After our 6-0 win against Canturbury during the Super 14 we couldn’t match the Cantab’s on Saturday night, in what was our second attempt this season.

In the last 52 years we have had 21 attempts and I can remember at least 2 years where we fortunate to get 2 bites at the cherry.

Anyway, what I found quite interesting which helps illustrate how long it has been was the following:

  • 1957 was the year of New Zealand’s last execution!
  • John Lennon and Paul McCartney met and 3 years later the Beatles were formed!

52 years is a long time…

Go Global from Day One

Another of the great speakers at Morgo was Bill Reichert from Garage Ventures who presented his new rules for Entrepneurs.

Andy Lark has covered these very well on his blog.

I especially like rule number 6 “Be global day one.” While this doesn’t mean you need to sell globally and open offices around the world from day one, it does mean you need a global mindset in which to build your business on.
New Zealand is a great place to do business but on the world scale we are an extremely small economy and, if you have a very specific market (eg Architects), it can be extremely limited.

Constantly thinking about how you can build your business globally opens up new markets and large opportunities and also enforces an ‘efficiency mentality’ where you need to consider in a wider context, and in a context where you may never meet your customers face-to-face.

In this day and age the internet has made doing business globally a natural extension to many businesses especially software. Being able to communicate easily and undertake business electronically has broken down all the historic barriers to exporting. This is extremely beneficial to business like ours that are based on the opposite side of the world to our major markets.

In my opinion going global actually enhances a business from a New Zealand point of view – Not only for the founders but more importantly for our local customers. Our New Zealand customers benefit hugely from our international businesses as they get the ongoing benefits of innovation that directly help their work without the cost that would be incurred if we were only selling to New Zealand.

Morgo 2009

I had the opportunity and pleasure to once again attend Morgo – a conference for entrepreneurs held at Waitangi.

The conference was again full of great people, stories and fun. From Jetpacks to Electric Cars and Surgical Robots to Venture Funds in West Africa the 2 days were jam packed with inspiration.

I especially enjoyed Selwyn Pellet’s talk on “Setting out with the end in sight” and Mark Billinghurst from HitLabNZ who shows us his lifelong dream regarding Augmented Reality (more on this in another post when I get time!)

I could recount all sorts of highlights however I’ll leave this to other people who attended and have already typed up their notes!

NZ Angels review of Day One

NZ Angels review of Day Two

NZ Building Consent Process

I was checking through the NBR Online the other day (no not the paid subscription – you can read here, here and here what Lance Wiggs has to say about that!) and I came across this article that caught my eye.

Now getting a Building Consent is one of the most frustrating parts of any building project. Over the years with leaky buildings and such, the process has become more involved, rigorous, costly and longer!

Apart from the fact that changes are being made the comments at the bottom of the article interested me most:

building act need IT solution

the solution here has been stareing all and sundry in the face.get the companies office to build the department of building ( local councils) an internet site which is interactive, where the whole design process is online and the client attaches their plans.

While the idea misses the mark a little the concept behind it is incredibly sound – don’t just dabble with the current processes but take a completely new look at it.

Changes to the way buildings are designed and constructed is the business I am in and I have been involved both directly and as an advisor in projects trying to encourage these changes.

Without wanting to ‘pigeon hole’ them a couple of my customers, Predefine and Bisco, are looking at addressing this issue, with a commercial and residential focus respectively.

On the other hand these changes are nothing new, the Singapore Government implemented an ambitious project that involves code checking of intelligent 3d building models (ie BIM Models.)

You can read more about the CORONET e-PlanCheck here.