Paul King | Freelance Architect

Ideas to Remember

It strikes me that the terms of reference for the CERA earthquake memorial project almost entirely miss the point.http://cera.govt.nz/news/2014/site-confirmed-for-canterbury-earthquake-memorial-12-july-2014 Why are we limiting proposals to the location selected? The riverside site represents a number of quite profound social and architectural deficiencies and lost opportunities for any disaster memorial of international stature. The worst is that […]

Christchurch Cathedral Rebuilding

In May 2012, and again in December 2013, I had the privilege of working once more with Sir Miles Warren (I was an employee of his at Warren & Mahoney in the 90’s), on a very low cost ($18m) strategy for reinstating the Christchurch cathedral. In essence, the original masonry base would be salvaged & […]

Red Tape vs Ratepayers

Be warned, this article is something of a personal rant. I was advised by the Christchurch City Council recently that the processing of a Building Consent application I had lodged for a client could not proceed, because I had filled in a downloaded application form obtained from them in August, when I should have been […]

Architects on the Christchurch Rebuild

As an urgent public service response to Christchurch’s recent devastating earthquakes, a good number of Christchurch’s Architects who feel passionately about the city, including some of its most respected and experienced practitioners, have for some months been volunteering their time to consider and work on strategies and ideas for the reconstruction of the central city. […]

Christchurch ’48 Hours’ Competition

Christchurch Architects were put to the challenge recently, with a design competition to address the earthquake ravaged city centre. Starting at midday on 1st July 2011 and finishing an exhausting but exhilarating 48 hours later, 15 teams comprising over a hundred Architects, architectural designers, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers and students gathered together at Lincoln […]