Abstract:
Throughout New Zealand’s history, small rural towns have
been the centre of the national identity. Today, with a shift in
population towards urban areas, and with the centralisation of
rural industries, these small towns face a difficult transition.
With this in mind, we can identify an opportunity for the
design-minded architect to expand their role and create
a reinvented contingent practice model. This aligns with
movements within the architectural community, critiquing
the narrowing architectural field and its move away from the
social responsibilities that their broad skill set demands. In the
addressing of this designers such as Jeremy Till in the United
Kingdom and ĀKAU, based in New Zealand, have adopted
models centred around community involvement, design
education and alternative architectural output. This project
adapts these models to form a new mobile practice situated
in Taranaki in response to the social, cultural, natural and
industrial landscapes that form the network of small towns
and productive land. This mobile practice uses design as a tool
for empowerment by increasing accessibility and transparency
of the design process, therefore enabling the public to view
their changing conditions through the lens of creative problem
solving and localised initiatives. To achieve this the architect
expands the architectural scope’s front end to further include
the formation of strong community relationships and a design
education effort. This is then followed up by a back end that
stresses the benefits of participatory, varied scales of staged
architectural output, and a broader adherence to a closed
system approach to materials and labour. This practice model
is tested by delivering a speculative project for the Rahotu
Dairy Cooperative, later becoming the basis for a reflection
which questions the feasibility of transferring the model to
other regions within New Zealand.
