Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Week 12: Wellington waterfront

This is apparently New Zealand's first purpose-built 'green' office building. Meridian Energy is the principal tenant, and the Wellington waterfront building is designed to use 60% less energy and 70% less water than comparable office buildings. I'm not sure why it has to look like this, but then I'm not an architect, so what do I know?

The writer's walkway around the Wellington waterfront features a load of obscure quotes. Some are quite deep and meanigful, others are merely empty aphorisms. But flanked by boats, water, restaurants and rusting mooring posts, at least they look pretty.

This bloke is merrily soldering on the safety instructions to a plaque while his mate stands by in non-protective clothing. The weather is unfeasibly calm for once - I'm sure that all outdoor soldering will be done today.

On a very wet and windy weekday afternoon, the chairs are stacked outside St John's bar - a far cry from the lazy afternoon drinks in the sun as promulgated by the casual crowd.

The steel plants on the plinths outside Te Papa are clattering and waving in the wind.

Local popular wisdom has it that 'you can't beat Wellington on a good day.' This may or may not be true, but this is what it looks like most of the time - the waterfront at lunchtime...


Even the statues are sniffing out better weather.

On this grey day, the only splash of colour is to be found at the basketball/BMX/skateboard park. So, when does graffiti become artwork?

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