Pattersons

Practice in Profile Supported by

Do you find a void at the centre of architecture? And the necessary covering over of this void, to create stable ground on which something can be built, the motivating force to explain and support architectural practice? It is in the spirit of these questions that we have made a collective decision to resist the re-presentation of the ground on which our work, our service and our business as architects stand.

Like architecture, our individual and collective identities are sustained by voids. Necessarily empty containers, filled with potential, through which we reach out for, and into, the future, in an act of creative discovery. We put it to you that the void between us is the space on which our present and future vitality depends. And so, we present ourselves to you as we are, a manifold of voices, with the hope that, in doing so, we might begin to see the shape of it.

FREE RADICALS

How we use pattern at Patterson has been a constant and conscious evolution. Early examples – Cumulus 2003, Stratus 2005 and Mai Mai 2007 – used repeating 3D motifs within otherwise flat façades to express a connection to place through pattern. It is fair to say, by 2010, we had become experts in use of glass reinforced concrete (GRC). Maybe because of this, we jointly felt the need to further develop our technique in this area. As is often the case, this experimentation began in our public work.

Our concept for Christchurch Botanical Gardens Visitors Centre, 2014, is underpinned by an ecology of references unique to its purpose and place: cellulose plant cell structures, snow-covered mountain tops, low-lying fog and Gothic rooflines.

Plant cell structures were of particular importance to us as we looked for ways to utilise exposed structure in a way that minimised its often decorative and moralising effects. Impressed by the simple elegance of modular, component-based rural glass houses – their spatial qualities and highly optimised exposed structure – we understood that the purity of this machine for living could be infected with our own holistic approach to place and pattern.

We developed our own rhythmic structural pattern and conjoined the roof and wall as an inverted wrap, realising a simple but surprising geometric motif. This geometry informed internal space planning, the overall building structure and form. Private spaces are contained in cell-like pods that also act as bracing elements within the wider open public spaces. The resulting concept emerges from the intersection of structure, form and parti.

Our pattern thinking evolved again at the Len Lye Centre, 2015, where fluid structural concrete walls support, contrast and map the metallic façade; an architectural effect that links Len and his work to the building.