Wellington Teachers Training College (later: Karori Campus, Victoria University)
In order to respect the scale of the residential neighborhood, the design avoided a large, obtrusive block and ensured all buildings were no higher than the existing houses at site boundaries. A structural grid of 4.9 meters (sixteen feet) ensures an underlying aesthetic continuity. Elevational delectation occurs with layered infilling of the resulting 4.9 × 3.7 meter (16 × 12 foot) frame from a rich menu of raw, indigenous concrete: smooth, off- white, gray, dark basalt aggregate, precast, cast in situ, board-marked, ribbed, and hacked. A desire for low-maintenance underpinned the brief. Excerpt from Christine McCarthy’s article in: SOS Brutalism: A Global Survey. Catalog DAM + Wüstenrot Foundation, Zurich (Park Books) 2017