Have a read of the first chapter of the new Freerange-published book Tsunami Box by Gerald Melling.

Gerald is a partner in the award winning Architecture firm MellingMorse Architects. In 2008 they won the NZ Home of the Year 2008 with the Signal Box House Masterton, and their Samurai House is featured in the Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century Architecture. Their work has been featured in the following: The Listener, Architectural Review, Architecture and Design, Architecture New Zealand, Urbis, House and Garden, At Home: A Century Of New Zealand Design, World Architecture: A Critical Mosaic 1900 -2000.

Gerald has published several books of writing on NZ Architecture; Joyful Architecture: The genius of New Zealand’s Ian Athfield (1980), Mid City Crisis & Other Stories (1989), and Positively Architecture: New Zealand’s Roger Walker. (1985). He has also had his poetry widely published in Landfall, New Canadian Poetry, Post Cards from the Coast (1992), Illustrated Poetry (1968).

Click below to see read the first chapter.

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Tsunami Box has had its first few reviews, in The Dominion Post (Wellington Daily Paper) on Saturday, and Salient (Victoria University Student Mag).  I’m yet to read the Dompost one, (if anyone has a copy or bought the paper on Saturday in Wellington can they send me a copy?) but the Salient review makes the lovely concluding comments:

“Tsunami Box does well to break with tradition in order to provide an interesting, positive and insightful read with a fresh perspective on how an architect with a strong desire to make a difference might apply his skills to provide a low-cost solution to the noble cause of disaster relief housing.”

Stuart Taylor, Salient

It should be noted too that this book is not just for architects and designer’s.  Gerald has been writing for well over 30 years and this is something like his 6th published book, while the topic is about design in difficult circumstances, the lessons of inter-cultural difficulties and dealing with post-disaster situations are ones we should all be learning.  Its a perfect example of how universal lessons can be drawn from specific examples.

I was in Samoa recently chatting to someone about my favourite architects that actually build stuff and decided to write a list of my top ten. Given that I’ve studied architecture for a number of years that is really to scary to write down I was quite surprised how hard this list was to write. I don’t know if this means that my memory really is appalling or whether architects are just a bit shit at their jobs. Anyway without any doubt here’s ten that definately are not shit… in no particular order.

1. Geoffery Bawa (Sri Lanka)
2. Gerald Melling (NZ)
3. Peter Rich (South Africa)
4. Donovan Hill (Brisbane)
5. Laurie Baker (India)
6. Herzog de Meuron (Swiss)
7. Sumangala Jayatillaka (Sri Lanka)
8. John Scott (NZ)
9. Paulo Solari (America)
10. I guess I have to put Gaudi in there.

I’d be very interested to know what other people think.

ps. I’m well aware that there are no women on this list which is a devastating comment on something.  I’m not sure if its my tastes, the architecture profession, the media, the institutions…