Mt Rex : Hybrid-programming within an industrial terrain vague. A means towards the reinvigoration of a marginalised community.

Abstract

RESEARCH QUESTIONS: - How can architecture act in marginalised territories – terrains vague, to enable them to function again for a community that is in need of re-vitalisation?

- How can architecture act in the terrains vague without becoming an aggressive instrument of power and abstract reason?

- How can the tourist gaze be re-directed from the consumption of picturesque landscapes and constructed ‘places’ towards an appreciation of the marginalised?

My home is at Muriwai; a west coast beach that bounds the Tasman Sea and stretches Northward to the Kaipara Harbour.

The legacy of the Kaipara Harbour is [Mt Rex’s] concern.

Through the preservation and reuse of a semi-abandoned industrial site, the project directs visitors’ attention towards the Harbour – its reputation as being untamed, its significance to local communities – and fights for the preservation of its ecologies. The project includes the hybrid-programming of three site-specific programmes on a semi-abandoned industrial landscape – crossing live industry with the touristic and scientific. Programmes have been proposed that will be beneficial to each another and to both the site and wider context in which they are situated.

The project challenges society’s views about marginal landscapes, and takes advantage of the changing tourist gaze to educate visitors about the area.

[Mt Rex] is not an attempt to construct boundaries, enforce reason, or conceal flaws, but rather to celebrate the specifics of place, and to celebrate the marginalised. With the redirection of the tourist gaze and the renunciation of society’s ideas toward approaching design in marginalised territories, (terrains vague), the project aims for a community and regional reinvigoration.