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Welcome to Wellington Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation student work showcase. This site showcases our student's best architecture and design work in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Wellington Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation student work showcase

Layout plan for a modern hotel lobby in Crillon le Brave, France. 


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Crillon le Brave Hotel Lobby

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Light and Atmosphere Iterative Development

Ō Tokaanu' was a collaborative project redesigning Tokaanu’s geothermal pools. 
Ō translates from Māori to mean ‘those of’. When visiting the site, our guide stated that they wanted the design to reflect that the land, people, and water are all connected, and this name embodies that notion.

Ō’s objective is to create a sensory experience that enhances interception. This is done through weaving holistic Māori wellness back into the local vernacular. A sincere interest in intelligent and sustainable design extends to every aspect of the geothermal journey, treading lightly with respect for the past, present and future.

Materiality has been closely considered to help evoke a sense of place. Rammed earth draws similarities from the clay ground at Tokaanu. Charred timber mimics the trees that could not withstand the thermal conditions. A thatched roof references the resilient grasses, and pounamu and rakau illustrate the ancient Maori massage technique Mirimiri.

For the master plan, we decided to stay within the grounds of the current thermal pools. This allowed us to minimise our footprint and retain all the rugged site Tokaanu offers.

Every aspect of this design has been carefully curated to create spacial experiences that evoke a sense of purity and enhances interception - something Tokaanu does so effortlessly - leading to a meaningful connection between land, water, and people.

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Ō Tokaanu

Set around Lower Hutt’s river – Te Awakairangi, this project challenged us to design across a 7km site whilst attempting to retain the connection to the on-the-ground user experience. Through on-site explorations and documentation I developed an inquiry into how the Hutt River can foster a greater sense of curiosity to attract people to the river and engage them within the site.  

The existing landscape is monotonous site consisting of river-edge planting, vast open grass areas, and homogenous pathways. This linear formula does not foster a great sense of curiosity as it separates people from the river and confines movement to straight longitudinal paths which is disconnected from how people want to use the site.  My approach attempted to find moments of curiosity within the landscape. Curiosity is that sense of wonder and intrigue you get when exploring and can be broken down into the physical relationships of one’s movement direction, the pathway orientation within the landscape, the ground surface angle and materiality, and vegetation massing. 

I first mapped a typology of the on-the-ground experience of walking along the existing site and from this was able to identify the areas where there were moments of curiosity.  Patterns began to emerge which highlighted that movements from ‘boring’, homogenous areas (e.g. vast open grass spaces) into stimulating, engaging areas (e.g. enclosed vegetated spaces that connect you to the river) drew users from within their own minds, back into the landscape.  

This acquired knowledge informed the design approach where I selected areas that provided the opportunity to connect surrounding neighbourhoods to the river and stimulate their sense of curiosity within the site to encourage greater use of these spaces.

Sienna Wells

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Crillon le Brave Hotel Lobby

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Other Projects

Light and Atmosphere Iterative Development

Ō Tokaanu

Curious Landscapes

Other Projects

Light and Atmosphere Iterative Development

Ō Tokaanu

Curious Landscapes