Various Artists with Beth & Sofia

A  few longer chats for todays Various Artists—E Whai Ake Nei:

Frances has a talk with architects Nicholas and Gary of Stevens Lawson about their recent New Zealand Institute of Architects Gold Medal award. 

Liam had a kōrero with Black Salt Games, an Õtautahi based game development studio about the release of their debut supernatural fishing RPG, DREDGE. 

And we have your Tāmaki arts guide for the thirty first of march till the seventh of April. 

We also have tunes from School Fair, Aldous Harding, Broken Social Scene, and Ween (yes, it was Ocean Man. It fits the eldritch fishing horror vibe.)

The New Zealand Institute of Architects Gold Medal for 2022 award was recently presented to Nicholas and Gary of Stevens Lawson’s Architects.

Between them they have 200 completed projects behind them, encompassing 80 bespoke houses and 20-odd multi-residential projects. So far the Institute has recognised Stevens Lawson with 25 national and 24 regional awards, as well as the New Zealand Architecture Medal, the Supreme Award and the 2022 John Scott Award for Public Architecture. They were awarded a category win and highly commended at the 2022 World Architecture Festival.

The NZIA Gold Medal, however, is a little different. It is the highest individual honour an architect can achieve in New Zealand. It honours architects who consistently achieve the highest standards for – and with – their clients. Gold Medal recipients make an outstanding contribution to the practice of architecture, which is demonstrated through a consistently high-quality body of work over a period of time.

This week on Various Artists, Frances caught up with Nicholas and Gary to hear about their creative partnership, their work over the years and their hope for the future of Architecture in Aotearoa.

Today on Various Artists, We go over our wonderful WOMAD weekend! We have a little audio documentary capturing the sounds, sights, tastes and people of WOMAD 2023, featuring the wonderful Joe Wickins from The Thrift Store and every other corner of bFM. 

Frances talks to Professor Hinke Osinga from the University of Auckland about how mathematical  chaos and weather systems translate into art and craft.

Liam also had a kōrero with the team at 4phase Games, a dev studio based in taranaki working on their first Māori futurist console title implementing Te Ao Māori, Te Reo, and more!

We also have an interview with MEUTE where we talk about marching bands, techno, sunglasses, and jokes about dogs that get lost in translation.

 Another group present at WOMAD this year was the team behind 4Phase games, who were speaking as a part of the OMV Steam Lab. 

4Phase games are a new Ngāmotu/New Plymouth based game development team working on their very first title; a Maori futurist action adventure RPG to be released on consoles. 
The mahi 4Phase games are doing is so awesome and fresh in the Aotearoa gaming sphere, so Liam had a chat with them over the weekend to learn more about their team and the game they’re developing.