Unitec students bring light to Christchurch

^{22 August 2012}

The Department of Architecture have collaborated with Auckland University School of Architecture, AUT Spatial Design and CPIT to produce Luxcity; a large scale fabrication studio with the aim to produce a city of light for a one night event at the Festival of Transitional Architecture (FESTA) in Christchurch on 19-20 October 2012.

During the recent competition phase of the Luxcity inter-school architecture project, over fifty projects were presented from the four participating institutions. From this eleven projects, three of them from Unitec, were chosen to undergo further development and the students from these teams will all travel to Christchurch for FESTA.

The overall winner of the competition phase was a group of students from the Architecture Department at Unitec, called Stajegrouparchitects, with their project 'Tonic'. Their winning design (shown below) utilises the glowing properties of quinine in tonic water under ultraviolet light and the students intend to pass the tonic through transparent tubing and lift the structure to create a canopy and bar space - very creative!

Approximately 20 design studios with over 350 students will collaborate with Christchurch based clients in the months leading up to the event to establish large scale, fully functional pop up structures such as bars, theatres and restaurants .

Well done to Team Stajegrouparchitects for their win and to the Department of Architecture for connecting with other like-minded institutions to create this real world learning opportunity.

For more information go to http://luxcity2012.wordpress.com/about/.