Finalist – Emily Pearce
Emily Pearce from the Unitec Department of Architecture was a finalist in the 2018 NZIA Resene Student Design Awards for her project, 'Not a Monastery: Transposing and interpreting the ancient typology'.
Project description
For several reasons, including commercialisation and tourism, traditional Florentine crafts have slipped away from the historic Italian city’s centre. By choice, chance or necessity, however, several artisan schools have taken up residence in the city’s old monasteries – private, reclusive places away from the busy streets. Through a process of analysis, extraction and reinterpretation of the monastery’s inherent physical and social relationships, this project provides a toolbox of strategies to inform the design of an artisan school that will re-assimilate craft back into the city.
Citation
The resilient and adaptive qualities of a Florentine monastery are starting points for a project of finesse and organisational clarity. This once-lost part of the city has been rediscovered and, through a process of bricolage, has been carefully inserted into the ancient fabric of the city, and beautifully drawn in a series of sectional drawings that capture something of the light of Firenze. A new school, a place for traditional skills to find contemporary expression, has been carefully crafted around a spine that weaves old and new together with the landscape.
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