Grand host’s motto - design for life
Wellington architect Chris Moller is the host of new TV3 series He talks to James Croot about it and the challenges facing Kiwi architecture.
exceptionally good team around him to realise it – a great architect, excellent builder, supportive banker, and sub-contractors who all went the extra mile to help him.
What are some things that people often forget to think through when beginning to design their home?
Good preparation is everything. Taking the extra time at the beginning to think things through thoroughly and carefully makes a huge difference. The importance of good design cannot be overestimated. It’s about how everything works together as a whole – the result determines how usable and enjoyable it is. Understanding how all the different components and materials interact is hugely complex – so having a great team around you is the best way to deal with the tough stuff that inevitably happens. Without that, you can come unstuck very quickly.
What are three challenges in architecture in New Zealand?
1. Kiwis too often choose the cheapest cost for the short term, instead of the best long-term value (total life cost) – which in the long run is much cheaper. 2. There is a terrible lack of good social and affordable urban housing stock – especially where it’s needed between the outlying suburbs and inner-city core. And Not only Auckland and Christchurch have this problem. 3. We lack large-scale committed stakeholders (particularly government) to help reduce the boom-bust cycle of supply and demand. If this became policy it would radically reduce labour and material cost escalations. It would enable industry to focus on consistent quality in a systemic way to improve build quality and in turn the quality of our towns and cities. I believe the best way to do this is to shift the majority of construction to off-site prefabrication. The gains would be immense.
How did you first get interested in house design and architecture?
As kids, we grew up drawing, designing and making all sorts of things, clothes, boats, gliders, trolley’s, bush forts . . . I was constantly fascinated by nature – trying to understand how things tick or how they’re made. Then the 1970’s economic crisis hit, just as I was leaving school, and people recommended that I do commerce instead. It was a real test, a wakeup call that forced me to think hard about daily survival. One day, while trying to make up my mind, I saw some guys sailing model yachts and became totally immersed in what they were doing and how they built their boats. I suddenly realised I had to focus on design and making things. Initially, I studied industrial design, which was a great grounding for architecture. First of all: best album cover ever.
Duran Duran’s Paper Gods looks like a kid’s first Powerpoint project (in the best way) – icecream, a tiger and some other random thing plopped on top of a blue and pink gradient? Nailed it.
Weirdly, it kind of fits the album too. It’s a bit of a mish-mash. It somehow still feels like Duran Duran at their 1980s peak, without sounding at all dated.
This album – their 14th studio offering – features a host of collaborators, including Mark Ronson, Nile Rodgers, Janelle Monae, John Frusciante and even – bizarrely – Lindsay Lohan. Why? Probably the same reason there’s a sumo wrestler on the album cover; why not?
Duran Duran goes from 80s-tinged EDMwith Last Night in the City (featuring Kiesza), to a kind of hip-hop beat on You Kill Me With Silence, all the way through to the pure 80s offering that is Danceophobia (featuring Lohan’s strange voice-over). There’s even a bit of an old-school anthem with What Are the Chances?
Like I said, a lot of things on this album don’t really make sense, but that seems to be half the fun. If you like dance music with some remnants of the 80s thrown in just for kicks, this is for you.
And if you’re too young to remember the 80s, it simply adds a something fresh to today’s dance/ pop landscape – and that’s always a good thing.
the week