Copied, Dispatched and Received

Motivated by the growing number of neglected and underutilized heritage buildings found in smalltown New Zealand, Copied, Dispatched and Received investigates adaptive reuse as a way to revitalise a historic post office and its surrounding area.  As a heritage-listed building, it was crucial that any adaptation to the post office would retain and honour the building’s past.  Hence, conservation theories were thoroughly investigated to ensure sensitive and sympathetic design decisions were made. Existing adaptive reuse precedents were visited and researched, and the ‘ICOMOS New Zealand Charter’ and the ‘Matamata-Piako District Plan’ were consulted throughout the design process. 

Following this research, it was decided that a conscious effort should be made to retain the heritage of the site, its history, its natural and built environment, its materiality, and its social and architectural importance. However, it was important that this retention of heritage fabric was not to limit the buildings potential for future use.  Consequently, a contextual design approach was deemed most appropriate, where heritage fabric was treated with care, but the building could still embrace contemporary interventions and new uses where appropriate, looking to the current needs of the town for inspiration.  The adaptive reuse of the post office also considered economic, environmental, and sustainable factors, resulting in material waste reduction and the protection of existing cultural heritage values. 

On the surface, the design methodology was quite traditional, beginning with a site before moving onto contextual research, and multi-media making explorations.  However, as a project centred around a heritage building, a conscious effort was made to understand all aspects of the site.  Hence, contextual and archival research was initially carried out to establish a good foundation of knowledge for subsequent explorations to build upon. 

Through archival research the theme of ‘duplication’ was uncovered – first found in the building’s own mirrored duplication of the 1911 Helensville Post Office, then uncovered in the duplication within imperial-baroque government architecture, the archival reproduction of the hand-drawn plans and elevations, and the symmetrical architecture in adjacent Te Aroha sites. The notion of duplication quickly becoming a main design driver.  Through conceptual embossing, stencilling, casting, and model-making investigations the existing architecture was abstracted, duplicated, and rearranged to formulate new architectural outcomes.  The duplication design strategies of ‘inversion,’ ’mirroring’, and ‘repetition,’ were uncovered and explored through further model-making, and the idea that information was lost with each duplicate made was explored through the practice of casting. 

Whilst still informed by duplication, research on conservation theory, sense of place, materiality, adaptive reuse precedents, and contextualism all lead to more pragmatic developments and architectural outcomes.  Diagrammatic sketches, working drawings, and digital 3D modelling practices were implemented to develop a more detailed, situational, and comprehensive final architecture. 

The final proposal for the Te Aroha Telegraph and Post Office demonstrates how an outdated building can regain its relevance, retain its cultural heritage value, and reactivate the surrounding area through its redevelopment. Responding to the current needs of the community, the proposal includes numerous accessible circulation routes, as well as new community-orientated functions, such as the Art Gallery and Workshops, second-hand Bookstore, Historical Archive and Display Space, and multi-use covered plaza.  In response to the site’s beautiful scenic surroundings, the proposal presents a considered redevelopment of the adjacent geothermal waterway, rooftop viewing decks, and maintains viewshafts of Mount Te Aroha and the Waihou River. 

The early explorations around duplication were also continued into the final design. Expressed through the repeated tripartite organisation, the mirroring and inversion of the staircase protrusion, the simplified and repeated arched window forms, and the abstracted duplication of the original façade design, historic stories and old postmaster’s names.

Despite the major changes, conservation practices were considered throughout, demonstrated by the retention of heritage fabric, choice of complementary and site-appropriate materials, and the sympathetic size, scale, and organisation of all new interventions.  This blend between old and new fabric was finally explored at 1:1 scale through the construction of a table.  The table is made of an old, panelled door decorated with hybridised post office elements, like the pressed-tin ceiling pattern, and an old Te Aroha telegraph. The door was then made functional once again, with new steel legs and a glass top.  The historic door adaptively reused, just like the post office proposal. 

Holly Ancliffe’s thesis proposed an adaptive reuse of Te Aroha’s historic Post Office. She developed a design which is steeped in authenticity whilst being innovative in its adaption of the existing building. Her research speculated on how meaningful relationships between old and new fabric can be formed, where the building’s past informs new architectural work. Her project combined research into pre and post-colonial histories, the post office typology and the local Te Aroha post office history, geographical and townscape context, precedent study, conservation theory, design exploration and expression including thoughtful material consideration, and polished media representation. Her design strategies were mirroring, inversion, and repetition by making practices of casting, stencilling, and embossing. Abstracted model-making in the form of vignettes was utilised creatively to enable a greater understanding of the existing building and offer ways forward in the design process. Holly provided an in-depth description of Māori and Pakeha histories, the tension between the two, the role of Colonial architecture, and Government interventions in the well-being of society. Her thesis highlights a mature understanding of colonial imperialism as represented by this and similar buildings, and she demonstrated that despite the negative connotations of the impact on indigenous cultures, the need to be recognised rather than denied.

In examining architectural theory and the conflict between theory and practice, she was able to recognise that adaption of ideas and positive compromise are relevant and necessary aspects of the design process. Diagrams, plans, sketches over photographs, and digital modelling are all used very successfully, and they demonstrate the importance of iterations to explore moves towards a preferred architecture.

Her final design showed confidence and a high level of sensitivity, with well-selected proposals for use. Spatial complexity, material selection and manipulation of form were impressive, well-reasoned and explained.

By Gina Hochstein, supervisor