Highlights from Model Citizens 2023

09 Oct 2023

This year’s Model Citizens event, held as part of the Aotearoa Festival of Architecture programme, saw 11 teams from architecture practices and organisations gather together at Kada’s showroom in Auckland’s Parnell for a friendly, fun-filled object-making competition.

Model Citizens was first held in 2019, and teams from across the architectural design spectrum compete each year to win the coveted title and trophy, first won by Athfield Architects.

Judging the night’s creations this year were Matt Liggins (artist, architect and provocateur), Kim Paton (director at Objectspace) and Chris Barton (editor, Architecture NZ).

The teams of six were asked to “dream big” along the lines of Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown’s Bjarke Ingels Group’s (BIG) Aarhus Havnebadet-inspired dream for an open-air swimming pool along Auckland’s Bledisloe Wharf.

Congrats to this year’s winning team from SANNZ. Pictured from left: Sahil Tiku, Adam Collett, Cecelia Kuang, Rohan Sadhu and Evana Chan. Image by Jessica Chloe Gernat.

Points were awarded for:

• The best use of colour and technical building skills
• The best overall aesthetic appeal
• Size and general ‘wow-ness’
• The team’s 90 second presentation
• Bonus points were also awarded arbitrarily by the judges

The teams had only two hours to brainstorm, devise and construct their interpretation of what this landmark structure on the city’s soon-to-be reclaimed waterfront land might look like.

To put their creativity and design skills to the test, the teams were provided with Resene A4 drawdown swatches of a range of Resene paint colours, waterjet-cut slotted shapes of Seratone by Laminex, and double-sided tape to create the forms.

Taking away the big blue trophy this year was the team from SANNZ. The trophy was won last year by Architecture+Women NZ .

All proceeds from this year’s Model Citizens event, approximately $3300, will be donated to the Auckland City Mission by organisers ArchitectureNow and Architecture New Zealand magazine. 

For full article and imagery of the night, visit ArchitectureNow

Published: 09 Oct 2023