In Transit

Abstract

Within the 21st century, a shift in paradigm has influenced the development of ethnic cultures. In the density of international immigration, global economics and telecommunications, the social constructs for migrants are fluctuating into states of adaptation. As a traditional ethnic boundary no longer defines a culture, challenges are raised on the sustainability and authentication of culture, as globalization continues to disseminate these boundaries into a transparent global network. Considering architecture is derived from the cultural constructs of human occupancy, globalized spaces can be evaluated as supporting both the homogenization and heterogenization of individuals, communities, cultures, and ideas. The presence of Chinese migrants in New Zealand can draw parallels to such subjectification of space, as the country develops its cities to accommodate both the growing local population and foreign relations. As more individuals affiliate themselves as ‘Chinese New Zealanders,’ the formation of their cultural milieu can be evaluated as not fixated on the boundaries of their descending country, but one based on the social relations of the individual. This thesis will investigate how globalization discourse influences and formulates the ethnography of New Zealand Chinese migrants, where the spatial interpretation of their social condition gives inquiry of an architectural tectonic supportive of a migrant’s multifaceted livelihood. The outcomes of this thesis propose the design of an immigration centre, a structure that expresses an alternative interpretation of cultural architecture, where spaces support the blurring and management of varying spatial thresholds. A spatial junction that interrogates the reciprocal relations between local and international, public and communal, foreign and familiar.