"Our main pursuits were only cultural in the broadest sense. They were horse racing, playing rugby football, and beer-drinking – especially playing football."

John Mulgan, Report on Experience, 6.

Concept

Through the turnstiles, onto the terraces, before the hallowed turf – stadia exude a condition of unique spectacle. The effect of combined experience, a ritual framed by history and tradition produce profound qualities among the attendees. Aotearoa’s premiere stadium, Eden Park, has its fair share of glory stories. Simultaneously, residue remains from a pastime in need of updating. A House of Wild Dreams and Dumb Schemes examines the stadium’s condition as a force of cultural influence. An opportunity arises at Eden Park to upset order, relinquish power hierarchies, and commit conflict within the public consciousness of New Zealand.

Methodology

The methodology employed will determine how bad behaviour can inform a design practice outside the status quo. A syndicate of qualitative models seek to consider acts of subversion through an atmospheric lens. The description of these maquettes as creative interpretations of an experience applies an empathetic appraisal. Collages, drawings, and assemblages attack the context. Collectively, the making exhibits a sense of oppositional practice – confronting the power and history of the site through an air of disobedience.

Design Proposal

A House of Wild Dreams and Dumb Schemes culminates in a critique of the stadium. An occupied roof sets the antagonists against the ubiquitous New Zealand identity. Its superstructure contends with the park, implementing technological marvel as a device to disturb the status quo. The design proposes an allegory, whereby the veneration of the All Blacks is put against an air of disobedience. In an architectural provocation, one is left to consider a dream within New Zealand that is not the New Zealand dream. Of an All Blacks jersey. Of a quarter acre, native timber villa. Of an alternative to the banal.