A New Agora: A Project for the Sub-Centre | Grace Mills
RIBA Part.02 (2013) | Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
- In ancient Greece, the Agora was the centre of political, social and athletic activity: a place of public assembly. This project re-thinks this concept in a contemporary and acutely-relevant polycentric setting. The sub-centre becomes architecture's project: seen as an urban context equally in need of innovation, imagination and critical response.
For Christchurch, A New Agora may be seen as a catalytic intervention on a vastly changing urban structure: challenging a more typical response and presenting one possible alternative. More generally, this design is a direct consideration and commentary on architecture's multi-faceted, critical relationship with the city: ultimately understanding the two as fundamentally intertwined.