The Lab | Ideal Home(land) 21 May – 9 June
21 May – 9 June 2013
10am – 5pm
Venue: The Lab, Chartwell Gallery, Auckland Art Gallery
Cost: Free
Will everyone keep talking about housing in Auckland? I hope so. Why should we ever stop?
In the past our collective vision of the ideal kiwi home has centred around this idea of the ‘quarter acre dream’. A suburban paradise where one could be in complete control of one’s own patch of the earth. Where the expression, “not in my backyard” takes its origin… It is precisely this backyard which I find to be particularly important in our conception of the ideal. The relationship between the architecture and the landscape is what characterises our way of living in Auckland. I believe it is by exploring how we can reconfigure this relationship, that we can propose new ways of living in Auckland which respond to the challenges we face.
Our Lab looks to propose fourteen individual projects for a single site in Hepburn Street, alongside four installations. Each catering for a diverse range of client types that are developing through our increased population and decreased affordability. The fourteen projects demonstrate the scope of approaches that could be taken to the redefinition of housing by attending to this issue of architecture and landscape. We look forward to welcoming you into our discussion from the 20th of May.