Old Hardware | New Software: An Urban Recreation Retreat by the Waikanae River

Abstract

There is sufficient evidence that the urban areas around the Kapiti district do not adequately provide for the youth. The project addresses this missed opportunity by proposing an outdoor recreational facility by the Waikanae River to form part of the urban fabric for the districts youth and wider community. The building will look to encourage a greater active engagement of the region’s natural settings.

This inquiry is tested through design led research and the following research question formed the basis for design experimentation throughout the year: How can a playful architecture respond to environmental change and technological advancement while maintaining a sense of communal inclusiveness and contribute to local identity?

Firstly the thesis explores the development of a design proposal for Waikanae and the greater Kapiti district. Here the scheme looks to strengthen the relationship between the Waikanae River and its setting through reclaiming, developing and reconnecting the land around the Karu Reserve to the river and township. Site specific design outputs were tested in order to engage and connect people to the architecture. The design is unusual in the way that it moves between the architectural ideas of ‘familiarity’ and ‘strangeness’. Familiarity is expressed through connections to familiar building types in the New Zealand context and the use of locally sourced materials. Strangeness is expressed through an idiosyncratic response to site requirements where a flexible architecture looks to work in tune with environmental flux. The relationship between the ‘familiar’ and the ‘strange’ is site responsive.

By embracing environmental flux and developing an idiosyncratic response the architecture adheres to the sites environmental ‘requirements’. The project also looks to develop environmental ‘opportunities’ by exploring futuristic applications of the environmental benefits of augmented reality technologies. However, there are risks when augmented reality goes beyond composite views of the real world and into a virtual. Questions of who really owns that reality and how can we be sure of the authenticity of the information exchanged within that reality are proposed prompting an overarching question of: Whose Reality?