July 2008 Archives

21st century renewal

21st century renewal

Wellington’s Waitangi Park – transformed in a collaboration between landscape architects Wraight & Associates and Athfield Architects – combines environmentally-sound urban redevelopment with recreation, and includes water purifying ponds, man-made wetlands and a concrete…

On your marks, get set

On your marks, get set

Artist Daniel Crooks, who originally hails from Hastings, has won the Australian inaugural $100,000, Basil Sellers Art Prize for ‘Static no. 11 (man running)’, a computer-modified video of champion athlete Christopher Brown sprinting on…

Beauty in Cold

Beauty in Cold

Winter in New Zealand is captured in seascape images by Independent photographer Hannah Bills, who travelled through Wellington and then south, taking shots in and around Christchurch, “the Oxford of the southern hemisphere.” “Intensely…

Imagination Roars to Life

Imagination Roars to Life

Christchurch inventor Glenn Martin’s ultralight aircraft, the Martin Jetpack, a $100,000 “jetski for the sky” able to climb to heights of almost 2500m, has been launched at an aerospace show in Wisconsin. No more…

More than shelter

More than shelter

The “Mai Mai” house in Ponsonby (above) and the clubhouse at The Hills golf course in Queenstown (below), both designed by Auckland-based architects Patterson Associates, have been named finalists for October’s World…

From the gods in Paris

From the gods in Paris

Maori art is part of an exhibition called ‘Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860’ at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris; 250 objects from the “Polynesian Triangle” isles – New Zealand,…

Leave Your Hat On

Leave Your Hat On

The Christchurch-designed 2c Solar Light Cap is trialled by a Chicago Tribune reporter who dons the headgear for a camping trip on the Mississippi River. “Part of the appeal of sleeping in the woods…

Memories of Bledisloe

Memories of Bledisloe

In 2000, in front of 109,874 spectators jammed into Sydney’s Stadium Australia, Jonah Lomu landed the tenth try in a nerve-racking Bledisloe match beating Australia 39-35. Swerving in towards his wing opponent, Andrew Walker,…

Sunshine Travels

Sunshine Travels

Auckland band the Ruby Suns are fusing the sounds of the South Pacific and California, “bridging the gap between world music and pop.” Sole permanent member of the band, American Ryan McPhun permanently resettled…

Hart’s Net Worth

Hart’s Net Worth

Auckland investor Graeme Hart, 53, owner of the world’s second-largest drink-carton maker, Alcoa Inc. has surpassed both Donald Trump and Sir Richard Branson in the wealth stakes, doubling his bank account over the past…

Te Reo Goes Google

Te Reo Goes Google

Google Aotearoa has been launched to coincide with July’s Maori Language Week (Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori 2008), with more than 8750 words translated. Potaua Biasiny-Tule, 32, and his Puerto Rican wife Nikolasa,…

Dropping in on Europe

Dropping in on Europe

Wellington’s Fat Freddy’s Drop will tour Europe in November on the back of their latest release, the mammoth nine-minute track ‘The Camel’, which readers are offered free to download at the Times Online site….

Macchiato Marathon

Macchiato Marathon

The 182-strong New Zealand Olympic team will have flat whites and long blacks on tap in Beijing thanks to award-winning barista Julianne Frith, 21, from Auckland, who was selected by a panel of former…

Tall Blacks Perform Haka

Tall Blacks Perform Haka

The Tall Blacks perform a Haka before playing Greece.

With rapturous applause

With rapturous applause

Gisborne-born soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, 64, “came, sang and conquered” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at a Ravinia gala benefit concert. Looking every inch the beauteous diva in a stunning red-and-black ensemble, Te…

The American Dream

The American Dream

New Zealand is an enticing destination for American property developers and investors because the populace speaks English, there are minimal restrictions on ownership and land is still relatively cheap. There are also no property…

Toward NASCAR

Toward NASCAR

Auckland speedway driver and Midget racer Michael Pickens, 25, is on the way to his dream of a NASCAR future getting stock car experience on paved tracks this summer in the ASA Late Model…

Introducing Tauwhitu

Introducing Tauwhitu

In a Kerikeri pub sometime in the 1980s, Boston author Christina Thompson met a group of Maori having pints after a day spent diving for crayfish and uses this first encounter with native New…

Must Have Di Stagione

Must Have Di Stagione

Wellington design company Ataahua, owned by Bernadette Casey, has created a range of sustainable products made from repurposed coffee sacks, and Casey’s Cuban coffee roasters’ Trilby is gathering some fashionable followers. The hat is…

Snug as a Bug

Snug as a Bug

Merino Kids founder Amie Nilsson designed the award-winning Cocooi Babywrap with biblical swaddling in mind, keeping babies safely on their back and asleep longer. Swaddling creates a slight pressure around the baby’s body that…

Boscombe Breaks

Boscombe Breaks

Raglan-based marine consultants ASR Limited have designed a £3 million artificial reef at Boscombe beach in Bournemouth; work will begin on the seabed project in the next few months with a completion date of…

A thirty year legacy

A thirty year legacy

New Zealand drama teacher Ken Rea – who trained at Auckland’s Gil Cornwall academy and worked at Downstage and the Mercury Theatre – was honoured at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama for…

#101 Glowing Tuatara

#101 Glowing Tuatara

Edge Message #101 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM   NEW: NGA…

Against the Wind

Against the Wind

Three-time world champion windsurfer Barbara Kendall is off to Beijing and her fifth Olympics. Conditions at the sailing venue in Qingdao would be difficult, Kendall said. “It’s just not a windy spot. If we’re…

Lomu in Charity Match

Lomu in Charity Match

Rugby World Cup’s top try-scorer Jonah Lomu, 33, will play for the International Select XV in a charity match called, ‘Help the Heroes’ at Twickenham in September. The fundraiser will be staged to help…

Yacht Technology for Cars

Yacht Technology for Cars

Auckland property developer and yacht maker Jock Freemantle will launch a 2008 version of New Zealand’s first super car, the 550bhp BMW V8 Hulme named after New Zealand’s 1967 Formula One World Champion, Denny…

God Defend NZ

God Defend NZ

Of all the nations in the Anglosphere, New Zealand had the proudest and toughest military culture of the 20th Century according to Australian lawyer and author, Hal G. P. Colebatch. In an article in…

Joltin’ with the Jays

Joltin’ with the Jays

Aucklander Scott Campbell, 23, shook hands with Joe DiMaggio in 1995 as a New Zealand representative at the World Children’s Baseball Fair in Japan and this week, 13 years later, Campbell played Dimaggio’s Yankee…

Powered by Fruit

Powered by Fruit

Kiwifruit rejected for damage or inferiority is used as cattle feed throughout New Zealand, but Crown Research Institute, Scion and ZESPRI Innovation scientists are reconsidering its use as a potential biogas able to generate…

In love with Demant

In love with Demant

Whakatane artist Rozi Demant has her international debut exhibition with ‘Lovebirds’ at Santa Monica’s Tarryn Teresa Gallery. Demant, who holds the rare and enviable position of having produced five sold-out solo exhibitions before reaching…

NZ’s Cup of Joe

NZ’s Cup of Joe

Pavlova and flat whites are on the menu in Washington D.C. thanks to American policy analyst Art Hauptman who opened Cassatt’s restaurant after holidaying in New Zealand. And for this Washington Post reviewer it…

Trailer: Once Were Warriors

Trailer: Once Were Warriors

Fred Dagg: More Fred Dagg

Fred Dagg: More Fred Dagg

The iconic Fred Dagg in ‘More Fred Dagg’.

Facing New Partnerships

Facing New Partnerships

New Zealand’s population makeup may one day number more Asians than Maori according to a new study called, ‘Asians in New Zealand: Implications of a Changing Demography’, launched in Auckland this month. Authored…

Underwear wanderings

Underwear wanderings

Christchurch travel writer and columnist Joe Bennett’s quest to find the origins of his five-pack of Chinese-manufactured underpants, took him to a remote western corner of China and the cotton fields of Xinjiang. Bennett’s…

Landing in Hospital

Landing in Hospital

New Zealand company Medtral is attracting American medical tourists 7,000 miles across the globe searching for quality non-acute surgical procedures at cheaper rates than their own system is able to offer. Medtral says it…

One of Five Doubles

One of Five Doubles

Opunake-born middle-distance runner Peter Snell, who achieved the 800m and 1500m Olympic double, is included alongside other double victors, Dame Kelly Holmes and Albert Hill, on a BBC blog in a build-up to this…

With Unstudied Grace

With Unstudied Grace

New Zealand actor Jonno Roberts has the role of Stanley Kowalski in a Seattle production of A Streetcar Named Desire. It may seem a strange quirk, that someone from New Zealand has been given…

Art’s urban sprawl

Art’s urban sprawl

Christchurch hosts art biennale SCAPE 2008, a city-wide exhibition of new work by New Zealand and international artists all exploring the concept of cities as spaces reflective of social change, “constantly in flux.”…

Vocal ambassador

Vocal ambassador

Christchurch soprano Hayley Westenra, 21, performed with the US National Symphony Orchestra at the 28th annual broadcast of America’s popular 4th of July concert, Capitol Fourth before returning to the UK to continue a…

Low Blow

Low Blow

First, we’ll visit the ossuary. Tam Wong Shi, my friend Harry’s mum, reached her terminal milestone of 103 years a few weeks ago. Her journey in life sounded tough: married in feudal China at…