The Lab was a joint project between the architecture and spatial design faculties of AUT University, The University of Auckland and UNITEC. These institutions worked alongside students, local academics, designers and architects to develop a series of two to three week-long interdisciplinary design projects.

Albert Refiti, Elvon Young, Lars Jerlach, Monique Redmond and Emily O'Hara will lead a team from AUT Spatial Design and Visual Arts exploring socio-cultural-politico ‘problematics’ within and around Auckland.

Tuesday 2 July – Sunday 21 July. A series of events; 21 days/ 80 participants/ 32 projects

Transforming Topographies is envisaged as a space of mergence, debate and negotiation. A space continuously dismantled, repositioned and energised by groups and individuals in conversation within a fluid and open state of oscillation. As a group of thinkers, collaborators, makers and designers we intend to rethink the role of ‘the social’ and ‘the public’ as real spaces of continuous exchange and encounter that engenders our imagination and community values.
In assembling the schedule of events for Transforming Topographies, the Project Leaders have developed a curatorial strategy, a diagrammatic system for grouping the projects; rocks, mist, firecrackers — designed to create a shifting platform of events and activity within The Lab. Rocks are the large-scale installation/ time-based projects that run for significant lengths of time, Mist are projects that occupy The Lab for short time frames or merge in and out of the space, and Firecrackers are one-off, one-day or pop-up events, often performative in nature. The aim is that the rocks, mist and firecrackers will merge and relate in interesting and unexpected forms.

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