KEY POINTS:
A strong connection to her Maori roots influences Tere Insley's work as an architect as well as her personal taste. The Grey Lynn resident has worked at Warren & Mahoney for about six years, and is now an associate at the architect firm.
She describes her job as "designing, documenting and building buildings", and is working on the new Audi showroom in Auckland and a $20 million mail centre for New Zealand Post that's the size of two football fields.
"They wanted an environmentally sustainable building ... It's a really interesting project."
However she says designing buildings isn't her favourite part of her role as architect.
"I love working with people: engineers, consultants, clients."
Insley, of Te Whanau-a-Apanui descent, has worked as an architect for 20 years but counts her role within her whanau as her most important.
Two of her favourite buildings are the meeting house and dining hall at her family marae at Otuwhare in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, and a carving on exhibition at the Auckland Museum that was "carved by my great, great, great, great, great grandads with stone tools before Europeans arrived".
1. Christchurch Town Hall
The Christchurch Town Hall is an example of civic architecture which contributes to the core of the city and articulates a proud confident identity. Designed by Warren & Mahoney, heavy thick concrete walls combined with the mass of the building express stability and strength _ characteristics fundamental to the core of a community. On the other hand, the town hall also demonstrates a sensitivity as it interacts with its location by the Avon River. It gives the impression it is involved with the community, its transparency making it easy to comprehend and approachable.
2. Westpac Stadium Wellington
This high-profile sports stadium is affectionately known nationally as the cake tin. Another design by Warren & Mahoney, the simplicity of its form belies the multitude of functions it fulfills: seating 34,550 rugby spectators at capacity, corporate boxes, newsrooms, 1000-seat lounges and facilities for everyone to eat, drink and circulate in.
3. Student Amenities at University of Auckland
Student Amenities is located at the centre of the University, a campus of 40,000 students. Its high-tech claddings of high-performance glass, stainless steel mesh and aluminium composite panels are in keeping with contemporary youthful expectations. The rectangular, right-angled transparent block is appropriate containing intellectual, logical functions of 1100 study and computer suites while physical amenities such as cafes, supermarket, banks, hairdressers, doctors and dentists are housed in the organic curving form across a three-storey glass atrium. Designed by Warren & Mahoney.
4. Shoji Ueda Museum of Photography by Shin Takamatsu
An iconic building: its composition of simple shapes generated by the display and preservation of artefacts in optimal conditions is eloquent. The museum responds to its environment, imitating smaller dwellings set in a wider landscape. It frames a significant landscape feature, the mountain, and provides moments for contemplation such as viewing the framed mountain across still water.
5. National Aquatic Centre The Water Cube, Beijing Olympics by Chris Bos
A fundamental design principle to this building was feminine vs masculine, the yin and yang duality of nature. The main sports stadium projects masculine, fire properties while the Water Cube is feminine. This incredibly beautiful building, with captured bubbles within a precise, man-made frame is the result of advanced computer modelling to achieve the intricate structure and fabrication of leading edge materials to realise this built form.
6. Te Potaka bargeboards and doorway, Te Whanau-a- Apanui
These most highly-prized artefacts on display in the Auckland Museum were carved with stone tools back to my 10th great grandfathers before Europeans arrived.
Our grandfathers are portrayed, we are represented in this powerful work of art - so intricate, symbolic and of workmanship beyond compare.
7. Kowhaiwhai patterns, Te Poho o Rutaia meeting house, Te Whanau-a-Apanui
Te Poho o Rutaia is a family building imbued with ritual and traditional ways of doing things. When viewed in their totality, kowhaiwhai patterns represent authority by descent. The patterns vary and are symbolic of life, its origin, flourishing life or the focused mental attitude of a warrior. The patterns contribute to an inspiring space in which to grieve, to sleep and to experience extended family emotional support.
8. Patterned kete (kit) woven by my grandmother
Papakirango is another beautiful example which has historical, symbolic meaning and was executed by a master, a highly skilled artist.
9. Tukutuku panels, Ta Apirana, Te Whanau-a-Apanui
Ta Apirana, also a family building, is lined entirely with clear finished rimu panelling, creating a soft warm ambience for our dining hall. It is decorated with tukutuku patterned panels: Niho taniwha is symbolic of a leader's physical, mental and spiritual prowess; Poutama is symbolic of man's spiritual journey towards attaining psychological fulfilment; Patiki is symbolic of our relationship with water, the sea and abundance and; Roimata turuturu are the tears of the albatross.
10. Pet bird bracelets
These are now my earrings but were once carved bone bracelets that adorned our pet birds; kakapos. Imagine a child with its pet kakapo playing around it.
