RE(con)NOTATIONS | THE EDGE OF CHAOS

The Tauranga region is marked by an industrial scar, dividing its landscape between the bustling, fast-paced city of Tauranga and the slower residential relaxation hotspot, Mount Maunganui. The once vibrant softscape-created waterfront haven for animals, nature and residents has been transformed into a chaotic hardscape, leaving the waterfront inaccessible to the public. This research contends that the conventional typology of industrial ports is diminishing in the face of changing economic dynamics. The decreasing need for vast industrial port spaces starkly contrasts with the escalating demand for residential housing.

Re(con)notations / The Edge of Chaos tackles New Zealand’s largest port by volume: the port of Tauranga. This thesis explores how a machine-like aesthetic for new architecture can help multiple new programmatic typologies to co-exist in an industrial port setting, as shifting economic trends transform the need for traditional port activities. As a response to safety issues, the thesis proposes that different typologies can exist on different levels, enable the port functions to continue below while residential and commercial functions inhabit higher levels.

In order to achieve this, architectural outcome will be conceived as an allegorical architectural project that conveys the contextual machine aesthetic around itself, while embracing the vast area as an ever-changing dynamic zone.

Penelope Haralambidou describes the allegorical architectural project as a critical method for architectural design research; it draws from design disciplines outside the field of architecture to inform new ideas about architectural design. This research thesis aims to investigate how an allegorical architectural project can be used as a critical method to enhance the understanding of a site within an industrial zone by allowing residential and commercial centres to enter the site whilst maintaining the functionality of the industrial zone.

The thesis title for this allegorical architectural project draws inspiration from Michael Crichton’s novel “The Lost World.” He writes, “Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the edge of chaos can complex system flourish.” (Crichton, 2008, p. 7)