Abstract:
This thesis explores the architecture of urban manufacturing and its reinstatement into the urban fabric of Auckland. Through this the changing nature of the factory is examined posing the question: How can architecture facilitate a new typology for the creation of an urban factory microcosm in provision of both industrial and social requisites? The factory has been banished from the urban core; its negative perception has contributed to a disconnection between production and consumption. The proposed solution counters urban stratification and globalization with tailored local manufacturing. The mixed-use proposal is generated from problems that occur in the current disposable and consumeristic society and the need to counter those problems of waste through recycling and sustainable practices. The reintroduction of small scale manufacturing is proposed as the fourth element of urbanism working alongside perceived opposing typologies. Currently these typologies are broken up and separated around our cities, this thesis explores to what extent these programs could coexist. The proposal’s site at Wynyard Quarter provides an alternative development of this former industrial area and counters the concept of the trophy district put forward by Richard Florida’s The New Urban Crisis. Through perceptions and practice, the factory will be examined from the early concepts of Cottage Industries, the rise of mass production and to the future with digital desktop manufacturing. Part of this urban unification will be achieved through the inhabitation of industrial space with the promotion of an interactive industrial tourism. The final proposal is the development of a factory microcosm containing four different factory programs that inhabit both the decommissioned industrial remnants and the ongoing urban regeneration. Through this the dynamism of Wynyard quarter is realised, a contrast between tradition and innovation. A process of superimposition is used to amalgamate the rich layers of atmosphere, tectonics and site. Facilitated by this process an industrial architecture is explored that aims to remediate the perception and contaminated legacy of the factory. The outcome is designed to fragment the urban grid and challenge the perception of what manufacturing means for the city.