Dorset Street Flats
  • Read
    • The Architectural Review
    • Architecture 1820-1970
    • Atlas Of World Art
    • An Autobiography
    • At Home
    • Block Itinerary
    • Bulletin
    • Business South
    • Changing Times
    • Concrete
    • The Dictionary Of Art
    • The Elegant Shed
    • Europe, London and Alton West
    • Heritage New Zealand
    • A History Of NZ Architecture
    • Home And Building
    • Home New Zealand
    • Last Loneliest Loveliest
    • Long Live The Modern
    • Looking For The Local
    • The Modernist World
    • Neo-Avant-Garde and Postmodern
    • New Dreamland
    • New Territory
    • New Zealand Architect
    • New Zealand Architecture
    • NZ Architecture
    • NZ House & Garden
    • Ohinetahi
    • Practical Guide To Home Landscaping
    • Rolleston Avenue and Park Terrace >
      • Rolleston Avenue and Park Terrace Slideshow
    • Selected Architecture
    • The Press
    • Warren & Mahoney Architects
  • Look
    • The Original Drawings
  • Watch
    • The New Zealand Home (2016)
    • Brutal Beauty (2011)
    • New Zealand At Home (2006)
    • The Elegant Shed (1984)
  • Rebuild
  • Blog
  • Contact

October 25th, 2015

25/10/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
One of the most famous photographs of a NZ mid-century interior, this picture, taken around 1958, by photographer Martin Sydney Barriball (1929-2012), shows the inside of number 4 Dorset Street, decorated by it's architect/owner/occupier, Miles Warren, who lived in the flat between 1957 and 1965, and still later, used the flat as overflow office space for the practice of Warren & Mahoney. It has been reproduced in numerous publications, and is a visual expression of Warren's eclectic style of mixing the old and the new.

The original is held in the Architectural Centre Collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. PAColl-0811-09-18-01. Used with permission.
0 Comments

October 11th, 2015

11/10/2015

0 Comments

 
First broadcast by the BBC in 1996, architect Sir Richard Rogers (Lloyds of London) praises the iconic modernist Alton Estate in Roehampton, South London.
0 Comments

October 03rd, 2015

4/10/2015

0 Comments

 
Yesterday’s announcement of the impending demolition of the University of Canterbury Student’s Union building omits any reference to its place in Christchurch architecture, and indeed derides it as a “concrete jungle”. So this is an attempt to place it in some kind of context.

Designed and constructed between 1964 and 1967, the UCSU was the first complex multi-function building project taken on by the partnership of Warren and Mahoney, then just 6 years old. It spans a moment in time between Miles Warren’s earlier domestic scale buildings of a more pure modernist style (such as the 1956-57 Dorset Street Flats), and the the more hard-edged brutalist style of the late 1960s and 1970s, and indeed displays elements of both of these in its design. It is a contemporary of the pinnacles at both ends of this scale: College House (1964-67) for the former, the Christchurch Town Hall (1966-72) for the latter.

Built of fairface concrete, concrete block and Malayan meranti timber (a W&M favourite), the four main spaces - entrance foyer, 450-seat theatre, cafeteria and common room - are laid out in a central two-storey block, with the floor of the theatre sloping over the entrance, and the main common room stacked on top of the cafeteria. The smaller rooms and offices are located in narrow rows either side of the central block.

Warren described the construction in his 2008 autobiography:

     “By now we had been in practice for six years, working all this time with the brilliant engineer Lyall Holmes. We had mastered the techniques and vocabulary of load-bearing reinforced concrete block and fairface concrete. We had used pre-cast concrete elements in office blocks and the Christchurch Wool Exchange. Now it was time to display our structural and technical skills. We elected to cradle the student union in a framework of closely spaced pre-cast concrete and pre-stressed, post-tensioned beams and columns. Every carefully designed junction and every cable-termination block, was displayed inside and out, making a construction tour de force.”

Built at a cost of $635,468, it opened in 1967, with the chairman of the Grants Committee, Professor Alan Danks, describing it aptly as “a skeletal encrustation”.

In 1971, work began on designing a westward extension to the building, and by 1974, the newly opened wing, containing function rooms and outdoor amphitheatre seating, had almost doubled the size of the original.

In the 2000s however, a series of extremely poorly executed additions and alterations had resulted in a major defacing of the carefully crafted interior and exterior.  With the earthquake of February 2011, the building, on what proved to be its unstable riverside location, suffered major damage, with the three main sections of the complex splitting apart, and the building sliding northwards towards the river.

The UCSA was the first of three student unions designed by the partnership: University of Auckland (1965-69) and Massey University (1967-68).

Photographs shared from www.warrenandmahoney.com
0 Comments

October 02nd, 2015

3/10/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Click on photo for full report.
0 Comments

    Author

    Keep up to date by joining our Facebook page. Click on the icon above.

    Archives

    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Copyright 2015-2023 dorsetstreetflats.com.  All permissions sought wherever possible.