Elizabeth Milne, finalist
Elizabeth Milne, Unitec Architecture Department
Photo by David St George
Elizabeth Milne, from the Unitec Architecture Department, was a finalist at the 2016 NZIA Central Innovation Student Design Awards for her project ‘Sing Sing Urbanesia’.
Project description
Situated in the tropics of Papua New Guinea, where traditional village lifestyles exist alongside rapidly urbanising cities, this project explores how culture and context can be used to shape a uniquely Pacific ‘urbanesia’. The design draws upon a traditional architectural syntax and climatic principles, cultural values and current societal realities in order to generate an architecture of maximum value and meaning to the community. The result is a multi-purpose community facility and urban intervention plan that reconnects the city to its waterfront, and varied people to each other and the past. Just like the local Sing Sing dance festival, the stadium brings together diverse groups in a colourful celebration of culture.
Citation
In response to the challenging parameters of an existing stadium in the Papua New Guinean city of Lae, Elizabeth has elicited a design that is a confident display of the real and affordable and a well-thought-out urban response. This is a football stadium as village green; a place for people infused with clear references to the ecologies of place and designed for both social and environmental sustainability.
