Sameera
Khan
Kauri Lounge
As a university group project, we were given a brief by the Ellen Melville Centre to create an interactive urban forest in their Helen Clark Room to raise awareness about Kauri Dieback and the Urban Lounge itself as part of an installation during Conservation Week.
The project began as a collaboration with the Ellen Melville Centre and Auckland Council Biosecurity but grew organically to involve our school’s Māori cultural liaison, The Kauri Project (an independent activist artist collective), AIMS Services (Auckland City Parks), The Council Design Office (activations team), The Arataki Visitors Centre (in the Waitakere Ranges) and The Auckland Council Printroom.
Inside Kauri Lounge:
o create the forest ambience, we used a combination of projected forest images (mapped onto a curved wooden-slat wall), printed floor-to-ceiling banners (that also told the story of Kauri), Kauri tree models made of cardboard and paper, live native plants (from AIMS Services) and ambient native birdsong (recorded at Tiritiri Matangi). We also included a virtual reality experience that transported people to Tāne Mahuta (using 360 images shot in the Waipoua Forest) and a touch screen kiosk providing information about kauri dieback and track closures.
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The experience of collaborating on a real-world problem helped us practice and understand ethical and conscious design and understand how we can make a positive impact in the world we live in through our design work. The success of the installation not only brought together the community, it highlighted the significance of Kauri to Aotearoa, especially for those living in the city who are often disconnected from nature. Hopefully, through this project, we were able to contribute, even if only in small way, to saving our precious Kauri taonga.