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NZIA Press Release – Student Design Awards

Following on from my posts on the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards & And the Winner is… here is the official press release for the Awards.

Cadimage Solutions – 20 Years Young!

20 years ago I was 14 years old and just finishing my first year of high school – the biggest decisions of my short life were likely to do with which subjects I’d take in fourth form (Art and Woodwork for anyone who cares!)

However, 20 years ago was also the day that Murray and Sue Pearson founded Cadimage Solutions – the business I started working for 13 years ago and which I purchased 3 years ago.

In 1989 New Zealand was still in a recession following the crash of 87 and everyone told Murray it was not a good time to start a business – Murray’s opinion: it can only get better!

Twenty years later it is almost fitting to have survived another recession and be looking forward to returning to strong growth in the coming years.

Over the years Cadimage has had some remarkable achievements and now consists of a group of four companies with both local and global focus’s (foci?)

The Team at Cadimage (both past and present) have built a strong customer driven business which we can all be proud of.

NewÂ Zealand’sÂ economy is built on small business and I personally think 20 years is a remarkable achievement.

I’d therefore like to thank everyone including the founders, past employees, current employees and most importantly our customers both here and around the globe to contributing to this success!

Cheers to 20 more!

Barajas Airport

Last week I was in Madrid for 4 days.

It isn’t too surprising that the first piece of ‘local’ architecture I experienced was the relatively new Terminal 4 at Â Barajas-Madrid Airport.

Actually completed in 2004 the new Terminal along with it’s associated Satelitte terminal were not opened until 2006.

The terminal was designed by Antonio Lamela and Richard Rogers, and like a number of recently completed airports has an amazing sense of space.

One thing I found particularly interesting once I started researching the airport is that it was the Worlds 11th Busiest Airport in 2008 – something I found hard to believe as it was a virtual ghost town the day I arrived. Though more surprising was the fact that in the last 24 months I have passed through 10 of the top 13 busiest airports!

A couple of side notes:

My camera has a panaramic function but no sticthing software (work that one out!) So I searched the Internet and found AutoStitch – which I used to compile the picture above (make sure you open up the full image) The image is actually constructed of 14 photos with the righthand end having two rows of images. I was amazed to fine AutoStitch managed to compile them all together automatically – I didn’t even need to assemble them in a rough order!
The architecture of the airport interested me to the extent I wanted to see how effectively I could model it in ArchiCAD with some of the Tools we develop – check out the results here.

Student Award Season

It’s that time of year again when academia celebrates another year of study and dishes out a number of prizes to students.

This year Graphisoft New Zealand have become the Principle Sponsor of the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards – for this year and the next 3 years.

This sponsorship represents a sizable investment for a company of Graphisoft New Zealand’s size but I am sure we have made more thanÂ a few students happy.

Two nights ago we had the major Prize Giving where 4 students from each of Auckland University, Unitec and Wellington University competed to win a $5,000 cash prize along with an overseas trip.

Last night we handed out $10,000 in prizes to 16 students from across the first four years of study at the Unitex ScALA.

Tonight we do the same at the Auckland University School of Architecture and Planning.

Of all the Sponsorship, Advertising and Marketing we undertake, this exercise will be the hardest to quantify from a success/return point of view, but I can easily see that the money is going in a deserving direction.

I was never a good enough Architecture Student to come close to winning prizes of this nature – probably whyÂ I moved more into the technology side of Architecture. However, that saidÂ I know the money will be well received – even if some or all of it is spent on alcohol – and I am pleased Graphisoft has been able to supportÂ the New Zealand Student Community in this way.

I’m moving to Australia…

Actually I’m not but whenÂ I first heard about the following topic I simply couldn’t believe the state of our nation.

As I am sure many of you do as well, I love a great shower! Or more accurately I detest a weak shower.

To hear about the proposed changes that will place limits onÂ the flow rate of showers just seems that as a country we are continually focussing on small details and not big issues.

I can understand the need to conserve water and electricity etc but making allowable shower flow rates a law is one step too far!

You canÂ read about the proposal in the NZ Herald.

The following comment in the article certainly sums up my thoughts:

“Does this Government have a mandate to mess around with our lives to this degree?” one blogger wrote. “We can’t smack our kids, now we can’t bathe them as we see fit either?”

I have heard some other intereasting thoughts/ideas regarding Sustainability based on experiences during my recent trip to ArchiCAD University in the UK. I will share those in another post soon.