Block and Seam

I can imagine cities being assembled in the manner of a dress. I envision the fabrication of architecture as a collage; a layering and stitching together of form and colour in an urban environment. Collage and sewing can enrich the future character of our cities.

Contemporary cities are formally complex and diverse, unlike neo-classical cities like Paris, or Modernist cities that Corbusier imagined. Cities today are inevitably a kind of collage. In Aotearoa, our urban environment is weakened by ignorance. Stand-alone dwellings are sprawled across the whenua, disconnecting people from urban centres and communities. This spread-out urbanism is threatened by climate change, as seen in the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawke’s Bay in February 2023.

Using collage as a process for city-making can enrich the cultural experience of a place. I ask, how can we think about architecture as collage? Not as lasseiz- faire, but as a powerful formal opportunity.

Sewing is a powerful medium through which to explore the relationship between parts. My sewn collages take materials, patterns and colours seriously, as vital elements of our urban experience. I use 3 collage strategies to structure how I approach making different scales of urbanity: anchors and connectors (urban), blocks and seams (elemental) and pieces and hems (spatial).

Through my research, I investigate how collage can operate in the city. The background to this research is a personal fascination with sewing. This practice-based research draws out the implications that collage can have on architecture through experiments and reflections. The outcome of my research is an architectural proposition in Te Matau-a-Māui, where I imagine a vibrant piece of dense collaged city.