Brick Bay unveils its poetic new folly for 2026

21 May 2026

The winner of the 2026 Brick Bay Folly competition has been unveiled. Within the Wings of the Kāruhiruhi is a sculptural architectural installation inspired by the pied shag and the fleeting rhythms of the natural world.

Designed and built by a team of recent University of Auckland architecture graduates, Nyle Macaranas, Sufyaan Chuttur, Naomi Felicia, Jasleen Basra and Rain Nario, the folly is now open to visitors on the Brick Bay Sculpture Trail.

Inspired by the image of a Kāruhiruhi (pied shag) drying its wings in the sun, the structure takes the form of two sweeping timber wings that welcome visitors into the landscape.

Cloaked in woven fallen leaves collected by the thousands and stitched into coir netting, the folly has been intentionally designed to evolve over time, embracing impermanence rather than resisting it. As the leaves weather, curl and gradually fall away, the timber structure beneath is slowly revealed.

“A folly traditionally sits somewhere between sculpture and architecture,” says the team. “We wanted to create something that felt alive within the landscape. Something that changes with time and encourages people to pause and notice the small shifts happening around them.”

The Brick Bay Folly competition gives emerging architects and designers the opportunity to take a concept from sketchbook to full-scale reality, creating a temporary architectural installation for the renowned Brick Bay Sculpture Trail.

For this year’s team, the project represented their first experience building at full scale.

“We are very inexperienced in construction, and none of us had ever built anything beyond scale models at university,” the team said. “This project would not have been possible without the guidance and generosity of our mentors, and we are incredibly grateful for their support.”

“We always knew we wanted the primary structure to have a white base, but not a pure clinical white. Resene Half Fossil was the perfect off-white – warm, soft, and slightly earthy. We also loved the name “Fossil” itself, as it subtly connected back to the bird narratives behind the project. After the leaves are gone, what you are left with is the "fossil" of the bird,” says winning team spokesperson Nyle Macaranas.

“The contrasting tones of Resene Flax and Tulip Tree reference the life cycle of leaves, transitioning from green through to orange as they age and change through the seasons. This became a small way of embedding ideas of growth, transformation, and impermanence into the Folly.”

Nyle also says the team really appreciate the richness and depth of the Resene colours in natural light noting how the tones shift depending on the weather and surrounding landscape.

“Every year we see teams arrive with ambitious ideas and leave having transformed not only a landscape, but their own confidence and understanding of what’s possible,” says Brick Bay Sculpture Trust Special Projects Manager Rachael Lovelace, “Watching this year’s team bring such a poetic and challenging concept to life has been incredibly rewarding.”

Within the Wings of the Kāruhiruhi is now open to the public at Brick Bay Sculpture Trail on the Matakana Coast. See more details at Brick Bay online and watch the video below to learn more about the latest folly:

Published: 21 May 2026