An exploration of light and materials, Lace(d) has been through a number of iterations.

Originally part of The Joy of Architecture, Auckland Architecture Week 2005, Lace(d) was conceived, designed and built by Jessamine Fraser, Jaqui Chan, and Julianne Gee (all from Cook Sargisson & Pirie Ltd) and Kate Beilby (Scarlet Architects Ltd), with the support of Lindley Naismith, Scarlet Architects Ltd (formerly Aimer Naismith Architects Ltd) and Marshall Cook, Cook Sargisson & Pirie Architects Ltd.  This first installation was at Object Space in Ponsonby, Auckland.

A second installation was organised by Lindley Naismith for Women + Architecture, 2013 and was installed at Silo Park, on Auckland's waterfront.  Mark II was built by Jessamine Fraser (Fraser Architects Ltd), Clio Chiu (Scarlet Architects Ltd), and Vesna Palligora, Kimberly Browne, Aish Basrur and Claire Fontaine (all from Cook Sargisson & Pirie Ltd).

Finally, in 2014, a permanent home was found in the Newmarket garden of Lindley Naismith and John Balasoglou.  This smaller work was erected by Jessamine Fraser and Clio Chiu.

From the original accompanying notes for the 2005 exhibition:

Here, standard industrial materials are tectonically assembled to create an endlessly reconfigurable, recyclable, weather-screen that evokes an architecture ‘pora’, a traditional woven cape, designed to modify extremes of rain and sun in Auckland’s subtropical climate.

As light interacts with the steel and glass it turns from a screen into a lace curtain, from a window to a wall.  Different patterns are revealed from different viewpoints, or at different times of the day and night.  Through the shifting composition of elements and light, the object adapts, chameleon-like, to its environment; one moment emulating the existing dado panels, and in another mimicking an applied net curtain.  In moving away from the digital fixation of the early 21st century, and by re-presenting conventional materials in an unconventional way, the construction becomes a cosmetic space-machine; exploiting conditions of the transparency, translucency, solidity and reflectivity, the shingled object mediates the experience of spatial conditions on either side.  The street and the gallery are divided by, yet conflated in, this visual net.

Through threading and knotting the traditional Modernist materials of steel and glass into an architectural lacework, the surface adornment becomes self-supporting structure, and utilitarian materials become ornamental.  By adorning the gallery space, alternate spatial conditions are created, provoking the passerby to explore the sensual potential of the materials.  The glass loggia entrance allows the viewer to access the space created between the gallery wall/window and the installation/construction

Photos © Robin Smith Photographer Ltd