Abstract:
New Zealand’s original landscape was almost exclusively forested before becoming the last inhabitable place on earth to be inhabited. Less than a quarter of its forests remain and today it is one of the world’s most rapidly formed and contemporary landscapes. The relationship of New Zealand architecture to landscape follows the successional theories brought by both Polynesians and Europeans, who, rather than inhabit the forest, cut and built inside clearings. There architecture has stayed, notionally mowing a lawn around buildings so they do not need to change. This thesis examines those clearings which were not controlled or finished. These “unfinished” landscapes are now regressing from the changes made by inhabitation as they shift back from clearing to near-original forest. In doing so, they have become critical to our indigenous ecosystems and increasingly attract residential buildings. Here, architecture might contribute to conservation, but requires an approach that iteratively finishes buildings rather than repeatedly finishes the landscape. This thesis examines the author’s practice and precedents for change from Tokyo’s fast-changing and ‘forest-like’ city landscape against key change versus time relationships. Through creative practice, unfinished landscapes are shown to be broadly predictable and able to generate both preemptive and reactive opportunities for architectural change; change that can be undertaken in many timescales through being generational, maintenance or behavioral-led. By knowing where to look, and how to position and prepare in relation to the landscape, buildings can be prompted to iteratively maintain a tight fit and participate with landscapes regressing to become near-original forests. This opportunity is unique to New Zealand’s unfinished landscapes and previously excluded by the successional definition of architecture’s relationship to the landscape.The answer is not about form. Rather, it questions the practice of finishing buildings, and forwards “Soft Architecture” as an approach where buildings are designed to participate with existing landscapes, whether they are shifting or controlled, in regression or succession. For with forests providing an analogy for cities, the lessons extend to urban landscapes where New Zealand continues to build in clearings as it does in forests. This thesis shows if we stop mowing the lawn around New Zealand architecture, buildings must become soft; being finished is finished.