Puke Ariki Opening

kids of all ages having a ball at Puke Ariki in New Plymouth - congratulations to the team at Puke Ariki, Victoria University Architecture School and PrefabNZ for putting together such a wonderful exhibition.

Radio Interview with Daniel Keighley

http://m.soundcloud.com/acessradiotaranaki/chris-moller-interview-3-12http://m.soundcloud.com/acessradiotaranaki/chris-moller-interview-3-12

click-raft Virginia Winder article

wonderful article written by Virginia Winder
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/entertainment/8001535/Structures-click-with-nature

Puzzlekits Wrapped and Ready To Go !

The puzzlekits now have an assembly instruction manual - also used to 'wrap' the parts together. All set and ready TO GO...  feels like we have a factory running now !
Here are the latest photos taken by Ellen at the printer

Last minute preparations...

Just a few days to go until the opening at Puke Ariki - excitement is building, the full size click-raft is in place in New Plymouth with a wonderful mix of brave, explorative prefab experiments already assembled, and arriving outside on New Plymouth's extraordinary waterfront. Meanwhile Ellen and Ben have been slaving away with the CNC machines producing puzzlekits for kids and curious minds  of all ages to assemble, test out and explore, to make their own. 

Puke Ariki Click-Raft Fabrication at Stanley Factory

Things are getting exciting, the Puke Ariki exhibition launch is getting very close now. Fabrication at the Stanley Factory has happened like clock-work, all pieces were cut in one morning, and the 4.8 x 2.6 raft assembled shortly afterwards, we took some photos at the factory at the end of the week before it was dis-assembled and flatpacked to be transported to New Plymouth. Many thanks to Gary Caulfied, Sean Wood and team at Stanley, and Craig Floyd at Plytech for suppling the plywood.

                                      

click-raft is evolving...

click-raft is evolving.....  the click-leaf components can be understood as a kind of evolving cell, capable of learning new information, rather than simply as fixed prefab materials. We are working on developing generalised cell-types into a genetic code, partly to see at first glance what "family" they belong to, partly to unambiguously define them, and partly for future experiments with computational artificial evolution. We hope to show this new approach to fabrication architecture at the Puke Ariki Exhibition in New Plymouth NZ (opening December 1st) - both with a full size prototype and loads of puzzlekits for people of all ages to explore and test out. 

Studio Pavilion - delivery & site assembly

Things are getting very exciting for the next stage of click-raft production - here are photos of the Studio Pavilion on-route to site, and site assembled on the same morning. Just in time for winter - on the other side of our magic planet :)

Studio Pavilion & Carport Roof

Currently we are busy preparing material for the 'Kiwi Prefab: cottage to cutting edge' exhibition in New Zealand where click-raft will be shown as a new approach to architecture and building construction. At the same time a Studio Pavilion is being fabricated and pre-assembled in the Netherlands. Jaap has been hard at work developing his second 'real' click-raft project (the first is a carport roof - photos below). Both of these can be produced as standard package kitsets or modified to specific site conditions and cladding requirements as required.

FUTURE SCHOOLS UPDATE

Last week was a very exciting development following the Future Proofing Schools competition in Australia with a very important round table workshop organised by Melbourne University involving key players from the education, construction, architecture and research sectors across Australia. I was also invited to speak as Vice Chairman for PrefabNZ to share our experiences in New Zealand including the challenges and opportunities in setting up a new cross-industry platform. Amazingly there was a very similar ambition at this workshop across the whole group, and so there will be an interim working group set up to get this moving. It is a very exciting moment for both Australian and New Zealand construction industries since this need has been there for quite some time, and many of the barriers or challenges can now be addressed with the formation of a specific platform to help catalyse and seed a new kind of approach to realising high quality, low cost, fast delivery products and services. Exciting too is that click-raft offers all of this right now for a new generation of inhabitants, clients, investors, developers and providers (including full off-grid capability for autonomous operation).