Te Nohonga Toru bears fruit in time for Spring — LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AOTEAROA

The fruits of the third nohonga (seat) design challenge run by the Auckland Branch of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects – Te Nohonga Toru - are now on show at Takutai Square, Britomart until the first week of October.

The 2024 challenge was set around asking for submissions to address the concept of ‘Haumanu – Renewal / Restoration’. The brief, written by William Hatton, laid down the wero of thinking about how we find balance with nature in the form of a nohonga. How might a nohonga be used to restore and/ or inform te taiao, whenua and tangata?

One of the team finalists Zak Kelland (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa, Pākehā) praised the theme and its ties to traditional teachings as “particularly thought-provoking”.

“The concept of 'Haumanu' resonates deeply with the mahi we do as kaihoahoa whenua (landscape architects), and encouraged us to delve into the essence of landscape architecture in Aotearoa”.

Fellow team finalist Nicole Tune agreed: “I think that higher purpose of trying to bring light to Haumanu made Te Nohonga a unique challenge. It may sound lofty, but it focused us on building more than a place to sit. Each choice and decision we signed off on had to firstly be tested against our kaupapa and align to our values”.

A judging panel consisting of landscape architects Jacky Bowring and Alan Titchener, Karen Warman (Resene), Jeremy Hansen (Britomart), and Sam Lockie supported by Tony Munro (both JFC) narrowed down the entries for Te Nohonga Toru – on a blind judging basis – down to four finalists; three of which were able to proceed to construction.

The selected entries selected as finalists were:

The Wave – a collaboration between Zak White, Jo Kearney and Alfred Chan.

Ka mua, Ka muri – a collaboration between Zak Kelland, Nicole Tune and Hamish Murphy

Pōkare – a collaboration between William Chrisp (Bespoke) and Ryan Peralta (Whangarei District Council)

The Whale Fall – a collaboration between Luna Cheng and Aynsley Cisaria. (Entry here).

The Wave, Ka mua Ka Muri and The Whale Fall all originated from collaborations at Boffa Miskell. The judges also singled out two further entries for special mention: Manapou and Te Mōtete.

As with the previous challenges of 2020 and 2022, all of the teams were inspired to see what could be done with the prompt of creating a seat under a pressured timeframe.

THE TEAM STORIES

On their unveiling day of Friday 6 September, clockwise from top left: The Wave; Ka mua, Ka muri; Pōkare.

Zak White had taken part in the previous Nohonga in 2022, and says that although that design was not selected, it was a great opportunity to think of seat design in a completely new way.

"I think these competitions really give the opportunity for Landscape Architects to show the variety of work we can produce and the new materials and building methods that allow these to come together".

Nicole: "The two times I have taken part in this competition have been wildly different. Our mahi on Ka mua, Ka muri has felt like a true expression of a team or community build”.

Some were taken back to similar project-based challenges from their days as landscape architecture students. Zak Kelland found himself, for instance, “staying up a bit too late to get something finished, just like my time at Te Herenga Waka".

"The pressure and last-minute rush felt very familiar, and given our team was made up of three early-career professionals the dynamic has had a similar energy to a university project - full of banter and bouncing ideas off each other".

Will Chrisp: “Coincidentally when the Te Nohonga challenge came to my notice at Bespoke, Ryan reached out to me. Given our time as good friends who had worked on a few projects at university together, it was a no-brainer to pair up and to apply a shared design approach”.

“We blended our strengths. Ryan's were around communicating concepts through detailed sketches and visual interpretation, and in contrast my passion for astrophotography came to the fore, adding further angles for articulating our narrative for the project”.

For Zak Kelland a unique aspect of Te Nohonga has been the bandwidth of "designing for ourselves, almost as if we were our own clients”.

“There's a freedom in that to explore our ideas deeply and to experiment in ways we might not typically get to in our day-to-day mahi".

Zak White: "As early career professionals this was an opportunity for us to take a project from a concept on paper to working as a wider team with engineers, suppliers and seating manufacturers through to full construction".

"It teaches you what is possible and how all these disciplines need to work together to make something as simple as a ‘seat’ come into existence”.

Will says that with Ryan being based in Whangarei and himself in Auckland a key lesson was the need for flexibility in their planning. “We managed by setting strict deadlines, holding multiple meetings over Teams and catching up if he was in the city”.

Two other lessons taken away by participants were balancing of the project with regular mahi and the importance of relationship building.

All respective team members are extremely grateful for the support they received, including the tautoko of colleagues within their firms, from friends and from whānau.

Nicole: "We had a group of people around us who did things like connecting us with people they knew, giving us a five minute design review, or even lending us tools to help with the build.

“We definitely met some incredibly wonderful and talented people along the way. People like Scott Geddes from Auckland Tree Services in particular who came on board with the same passion and alignment to our kaupapa and who really added to the story of our nohonga”.

Zak Kelland: “This experience has really highlighted the importance of collaboration and community in bringing a project like this to life – He waka eke noa”.

THE BACK STORY

Rachel de Lambert, one of the NZILA Auckland branch founders of Te Nohonga, credits Richard Didsbury of the Brick Bay Brick Bay Sculpture Trail for the inception of the nohonga challenge.

“Allied to thoughts being floated for a project at Brick Bay, Richard had fortuitously spotted a seat competition on a visit to London and sparked the idea.

“Subsequently we couldn’t have staged the challenge without Richard and Anna at Brick Bay, and this year we have welcomed JFC’s support alongside the ongoing venue provided at Britomart in the heart of the city.

The 2024 Te Nohonga sponsors: Jeremy Hansen, Britomart; John Lawrence, Resene; Matthew Bradbury, Unitec; Ethan Reid, Chairperson of the Auckland Branch of NZILA; and Sam Lockie, JFC.

Rachel: “The building of the seats is an important process. Essentially they’re all a form of prototype, and it’s been gratifying to see some even being embraced for commercial production.

“Outdoor seating deserves to be regarded as much for its form as its function. The seating that we get to celebrate through Te Nohonga is about a response to place, about comfort, and about aesthetics.

“Each of the designs introduces sculptural elements to the urban realm, offering a commentary at the boundary of art and the environment”.

There is an interesting comparison that could be drawn between the high-brow acclaim and veneration given to architect-designed chairs vis-à-vis the ‘ordinary public bench’.

Rachel points to the classic forms of such benches across different design epochs, noting the deployment of vintage cast iron and the iconic street furniture of Paris designed by Gabriel Davioud, or the Luytens-style bench aka the Sissinghurst.

“The contrasts aren’t competitive. The elevation of the Chair in Aotearoa seen at Objectspace earlier this year was joyful, as are contemporary integrations of seating by landscape architects like the late Megan Wraight. In both cases the variety of design and the ‘design love’ that seating and the positioning of nohonga receive can be too easily underestimated”.

“A point of difference for the seats we see in parks is of course the utility of being designed to seat more than one person and, often, for social connection.

“One of the things I love about designs that have been created for Te Nohonga is the attention to ergonomics, fitting the body well and the creative materiality and pops of colour. There’s a series of layers to them and they all make quite a statement”.

THE NEXT STORY

Another thing that Rachel de Lambert loves about the seats of Te Nohonga is their physical ‘second life’ beyond the challenge. She especially recalls one of the nohonga was gifted a home at the Refugee centre in Mangere, where it could keep on giving contemplative rest and pleasure.

The teams who have so professionally brought their designs to life this year have been pondering what next.

Will Chrisp: “Like the ripples of our design, Ryan and I are both happy for whichever journey it is taken on and the location and landscape it ends up in. We have had some whakaaro about a potential Pokare 2.0 and exploring further iterations of the form and concept that could potentially be taken to market”.

Zak White laughs that as much as he would like The Wave to come back to the office a final location hasn’t been decided. “Personally, I would love for it to be donated to a local playground or perhaps placed on a hiking trail as a stopping point. I just hope it can continue to be used and interacted with for years to come”.

Zak Kelland says there has been some kōrero with project partners about where the Ka mura, Ka muri nohonga might go. “One idea we’re considering is reconnecting it with the community from where the rākau (tree) was originally felled. To us, the actual story of how the tree was felled is just as compelling as the story of the nohonga itself.

Nicole agrees: “Returning the nohonga to a park near where the log originated would be cool. It would be a beautiful end to the story for our rākau.

“Whatever happens in the long run, the nohonga now leaves our hands and continues that final part of the cycle, moving from Te Rauemi (resource) and being restored to Papatūānuku”.

As landscape architects, we typically work with standard off-the-shelf benches, or custom designs without being deeply involved in overseeing the fabrication process.

This project really opened up our thinking beyond conventional methods, particularly using a parametric design approach which is less common for standard benches. My experience at Bespoke LA was valuable in influencing early research/design decisions on materiality and fixings.

Within our two-person team there was a convenient split, with Ryan managing the 3D modelling of the design while I prioritised liaising with our Auckland-based suppliers as part of the process of refining material selections.

The major concern was how we addressed sustainability goals of the project while choosing a material that would align with our rippled form and be durable in its placement for exposed environments. While we explored a variety of materials from recycled plastic to glass fiber reinforced concrete, we were ultimately both drawn to timber for its alignment with our design vision and aesthetic appeal.

The parametric design approach added complexity particularly in designing how the seat would be assembled and fixed tightly together in its circular form and doing this without damage. We consulted with Plyman for Gaboon Marine Plywood, which we had CNC cut at the Cutshop Wellington into our rippled form.

Local contractor Greenscene assisted with assembly of the seat, and their contact Fabspec acquired the SST steel round bars and spacers cut from SST tubing. They also bent the rods for us to the radiuses we needed and welded threaded rods to the end to wind hex nuts on to for final tightening.

We decided to do all the painting and sanding ourselves, which Fabspec were instrumental in facilitating, offering their warehouse to us throughout the weekday/weekend. We had the challenge of painting every surface on the panel all at once while keeping it off the ground. We devised a system where all the panels were painted with rollers and hung via long steel rods from Fabspec through the already drilled holes.

Addressing how to seal the panels to prevent water ingress and ensuring robust assembly were key concerns. Coordination with Resene presented a primer/ 2 coat application. We finalized the fabrication approach with an initial test assembly followed by three rounds of painting and sanding with final touch-ups to ensure a high-quality finish.