Our practice hosted an Open Studio for an hour on the final Friday of the Festival of Design Aotearoa.
We have never done anything quite like this, and it was an interesting challenge to consider what would be of value to the public, yet achievable for us in the middle of our normal workload. The timing of the event ended up coinciding with our office relocation, which gave us a firm deadline to have everything in place and looking together.
Our vision for the hour was for an informal time where people got to talk to us, browse our library of architecture books, and view some behind the scenes footage of projects – initial sketches, early renderings and plans, and photos of the construction process. We imagined that people would stay mainly in the front half of our new space, and we weren’t sure how many people would visit.
Our new office space was originally a retail shop, and is one large room with no divisions until the very back, where there is a small kitchenette and a storage room.
We wanted to create zones to suit how we work, and a space for client meetings. We had some Lundia Shelving from our previous library, and we have used that to create a meeting room at the front of the space, with our nicest books on the shelves.
There is ply shelving already in the space to one side which we’ve been able to utilize to our advantage. The previous shop used a ply pegboard system, with dowel’s coming out from the ply to hang goods for display (as you can see in the photo of our books above). We have this as our backing for our visual display.
Graced by the presence of our office dog Belle, the beginning of the Open Studio hour was a little chaotic, but she soon settled with Sid and we had people coming through the doors very quickly. It was really nice to experience the curiosity of our community, and to get to chat to people about what we do. There was a good mix of family and friends, and people entirely new to us, and we appreciate deeply those that took the time to come visit.
People ended up wandering through the whole space, gathering around different workspaces, or standing in groups to chat. With jet planes to munch on (our director Craig’s favorite treat!) and a cute dog to pat, we think everyone had a pretty great time.
Our Open Studio ended at 3pm, with many people heading over to Pūtiki Marae to visit Te Ruamātatoru – He Whata Kai for the Open Home tour with HERE magazine and Dulux at 4pm. No photographs were taken at that event, but the sun was out and it was a wonderful afternoon.
We aren’t sure whether we will sign ourselves up to move offices and open the office on the same week again, but it did get us in and settled on time! Thank you to everyone who came out, and to our builders, electricians and the technical support people who sorted everything out over the week so that we could be functioning. Also a huge thank you to Roy and the team from Fortifier who helped with our shift.
We enjoy an office renovation, and you can see some examples of our work at the Whanganui District Council, and at the Loaders Civil headquarters.
Photography by Ollie Kidd, Sarah Silvester and Malcolm Taylor.
