Pearson & Associates

ROTOROA ISLAND TRUST
ROTOROA ISLAND, HAURAKI GULF

Open to the public for the first time in 100 years the Rotoroa Island Exhibition Centre is set on a remote former Salvation Army alcohol and drug rehabilitation island ‘prison' within the Auckland Harbour.  As a philanthropic project this island is being restored to its natural state by the Rotoroa Island Trust. Aware that the Trust’s work for the island –the restoration of the land - paralleled the Salvation Army’s rehabilitation of the body and soul we looked at the simple New Zealand vernacular of the protective shed as our model. At the same time we developed the exhibition storyline concepts and chose to focus on the eclectic and unusual stories of the Sallies on the island.

Winner NZIA Auckland Branch Award for Public Architecture Winner NZ Timber Architecture Awards
Feature Article in NZ Architecture
Finalist NZIA National Award for Public Architecture

DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION
AORAKI MT COOK

Won by limited competition we worked with local architects for the architectural development and were the exhibition design and interpretive consultants for this iconic National Park Visitor Centre.  Based at New Zealand's highest peak Aoraki Mt Cook has a particular spiritual and historical significance to Maori and is where many international climbers have trained, including Sir Edmund Hilary in preparation for the conquest of Everest.

For this unique project, we gathered an exceptional team of researchers, iwi representatives, writers and consultants, including author and mountaineer Philip Temple.  This centre is the largest Visitor Centre the Dept of Conservation has undertaken to date.

Winner of the NZIA Canterbury Branch Award
for Interior Architecture

CAMBRIDGE HORSE STUD HERITAGE CENTRE AND EXHIBITION
Cambridge
This private Heritage Centre presents the legacy of Cambridge Horse Stud through the years, showcasing its incredible lineage and racing success, consolidating the stud’s position internationally in the racing and horse breeding industry. The centre follows a chronology of the stud’s history - the early years as Sir Patrick Hogan builds up the stud; the success of the sire Sir Tristram and his lineage as the basis of the stud’s reputation, horses Zabeel, Empire Rose and many others; the workings of the farm; the care of the horses and the people that have built the stud’s reputation. We developed the exhibition with Gibson Group and designed the base building architecture for this project.

PERMANENT INTERPRETIVE INSTALLATION
TITIRANGI, AUCKLAND

A highly sensitive interpretive exhibition within the original house of New Zealand’s most famous artist.

More like an art installation itself this interpretive exhibition tries to retain the delicate ambience of the original house while communicating the life of McCahon & his family at the house in the 1950’s.

The visitor is invited to open discreet boxes to reveal aspects of McCahon's life via graphics and subtle audio visual displays.

"In fact when all the boxes are opened it may evoke the times when McCahon lived at the house and people would drop in all the time, the house resonating with conversation, party music and family life. And when the boxes are closed it is as if the ghosts from a former time are placed back into the fabric of the walls, the boxes sitting again passively on the original shelves, blending into the fabric of the house, the house back to it’s present self."

Winner of inaugural Museums Aotearoa Award for Innovation (acknowledged as Motion of Parliament)
Winner NZIA Award for Heritage Architecture
Winner NZIA New Zealand Award
Finalist NZIA Supreme Award

RUN 89: GLENTANNER RESEARCH HUTS
Glentanner Station, Aoraki Mt Cook
A Kupu Toi development
See video https://vimeo.com/759301536

In the 1960’s the DSIR established several modest huts in the high alpine country above Glentanner Sheep Station, Run 89. Seasonally, a soil scientist and his family stayed in these huts, along with colleagues and fellow students, living the back country dream and studying the unique soil qualities of the area.
We were asked to develop and build an interpretation display that was sensitive to the unique historic huts, providing history without destroying the sensitive ambiance of the huts.

INAUGURAL EXHIBITION FOR AUCKLAND MUSEUM REDEVELOPMENT STAGE 1

This feature exhibition developed by the Auckland Museum is one of the largest the museum has undertaken and has travelled to several international museum destinations. The exhibition evokes the sophistication imbued in many of the iconic objects and stories, and focuses on the history of Pacific Navigation.

FLORILEGIA FROM THE 16TH TO 21ST CENTURIES
EXHIBITION, AUCKLAND MUSEUM

This modest exhibition showcases historic books from the museum library collection.

Books featuring beautiful plant illustration from the 16th to the 21st Century bring to light elements of cultural and social evolution.

Magnetic Observatory
Christchurch Botanic Gardens
A Kupu Toi development

In the early 1900’s Christchurch Botanic Gardens housed an internationally significant Magnetic Observatory to support early Antarctic Exploration and to gather astronomical and geological magnetic data from the Pacific Region.
To acknowledge this we have developed a modest exhibition showcasing the historic facility and this field of science, The exhibition is held within the last historic remnant of the original Magnetic Observatory, complete with moiré treatments to elicit the pervasive magnetic effects.

TORPEDO BAY DEVONPORT, AUCKLAND

As the public face of the RNZ Navy this is a new museum set within an 1885 historic shed. We were asked to develop this museum outlining the history of the Royal New Zealand Navy from it's roots with the Royal Navy, the World Wars through to roles now more of peace keeping, fisheries, salvage and rescue. We imbued this exhibition with stories of specific people, giving the exhibition a personal and authoritative tone. Working within a very tight budget the numerous objects link immediately with stories of heroism and tragedy as well as showcasing proudly the Navy of Today.

Winner NZIA Auckland Branch Award for Interior

WW1 INQUIRY RESEARCH CENTRE AUCKLAND MUSEUM

In support of the Online Cenotaph web based resource and as the inaugural gallery renewal for a range of large museum wide developments we were asked to develop a discovery centre / research reading room focusing on WW1. Working with museum curators, iwi representatives, heritage and base build architects we developed a series of research stations each focusing on one particular person, depicting their unique story and personal objects – an individual insight extrapolating to a wider whole.

Hidden by display structures for over 30 years this gallery has been refurbished to its original architectural form, complete with original stage and skylight windows, and is one of the most beautiful galleries in the museum. Our design is intended to be an elegant and under-stated design to the original architecture.

The concept of the individual soldier being part of a collective, a battalion, an army, a war, is followed through from a series of research stations as being part of the whole, to the detailing, where, for instance, members of delicate steel structures supporting the exhibits without touching the heritage building fabric are expressed individually in stainless steel and occasionally individual brass rods - all working collectively in support of the whole.

A complex array of interactive AV touch screens are found embedded within the fit out design allowing for a variety of visitor engagement.  These range from individual research stations, casual browser units, to a large interactive wall focusing on the decoding of WW1 medals. Reinforcing the underlying concept -from the collection object to the person and their stories behind each individual medal.

Winner NZIA Branch Award for Interior Architecture

WW1 PERMANENT EXHIBITION AUCKLAND MUSEUM

As a twin gallery to the successful Pou Maumahara Research Centre adjacent in the Auckland Museum we were commissioned to develop another exhibition also focusing on WW1. Both galleries feature beautiful and historic sky-lit spaces and this gallery looks at the unfolding global story of WW1 within a strong New Zealand context.  A central curvilinear wall traces a chronology of the 5 years of conflict with individual objects in distinctive cases delineating the major events. These events are described by a mix of text panels, photographs and graphic novel treatments with the objects providing a deep personal framework. 

In adjacent spaces surrounding the central chronology questions are prompted, asking the visitor to contextualize their own views and insights to the conflict. Themes covered include the motivation to go with a particularly New Zealand perspective; the physical hardships and needs of soldiers on the battlefield; the technological developments throughout the war; faith, rituals and the deceased; with the exterior of the curvilinear wall depicting aspects of the home front.  Over the course of the development we worked closely with various artists ensuring a strong iwi presence throughout the exhibition. In both Pou Maumahara and Pou Kanohi we worked along-side museum staff, contractors and specialists, and were pivotal in securing external funding for this project. 

KAIAPOI HISTORIC SOCIETY
RUATANIWHA CENTRE, KAIAPOI, CANTERBURY

This new museum was developed after the devastating Christchurch earthquakes destroyed the original Kaiapoi Museum. With limited access to the largely battered collections we developed a ‘democratic’ non-hierarchical approach to the exhibition design, reflecting the social nature of the small town of Kaiapoi.

The museum is formed by series of pavilions made up of cabinets containing assemblages of objects stacked 6m high, reflecting the museum’s act of collecting, the packing of people’s possessions after the earthquakes and the crating of trade objects.

Kai-a-poi loosely translates as:  ‘resources coming & going’ ie trade. A series of ‘Trade Pavilions’, typical of trade shows during the town’s hey-day, reinforce the historical importance of trade to Kaiapoi from early Maori trading and pounamu manufacturing, to the port and freezing works and to the flax, flour & woollen mills of later history.

Kaiapoi Museum is a typical small town museum for the locals rather than the international visitor. Containing many common-place collections we have given an extra-ordinary focus on the lives and stories behind the objects on display. This same ‘people focus’ forms the centre of the museum, where the volunteers – literally the life of the museum – rather than being in a back room can be seen to do their work, sit and chat in the very centre of the space.

Winner Best Museum Project Museums Aotearoa
Winner NZIA Branch Award for Interior Architecture
Winner NZIA Colour Award

KAIKOURA HISTORIC SOCIETY

This new museum development is a primary tourist attraction for the Kaikoura District.  Building on the existing museum collection we expanded the interpretation to include themes for an international visitor as well as those for the locals.

The circular layout of the museum interior allows for a 2 fold conceptual schematic.- firstly the centre of the museum begins with the local natural history and at it’s the focus the planktonic basis of all life in the area –  with specimens housed in a circular and internally expanding mirror box. From here the displays radiate in ever increasing circles to include themes covering a full range of the natural environment and to eventually include the long local human history of fishing, whaling and village life;. The second schema is concerned with the act of museum collecting and display – the circular fittings, have a ‘display’ side- complete with beautiful joinery in timber veneers, glass cases and extensive graphic interpretation – and a ‘storage’ side – where specimens are securely stored on banks of shelving. In this manner the same object can be seen from 2 differing contexts.

Mediating the interpretation are poems and karakia that galvanise the essence of each topic and can be read as part of a many layered visitor experience.

The design of the fit out caters for a wide variety of visitor types – the local, the international tourist, interest and touring groups as well as school classes. Various design elements allow for a range of activities to go on at the same time – from the individual to group inquiry.

The fit out also includes research and whakapapa rooms, archival storage, workrooms and a community room for changing exhibitions.

The devastating Kaikoura earthquakes of Nov 2016 occurred 4 days before the opening date of this museum. The museum sustained little damage due to extensive pre-emptive seismic design and fit-out work. The Civil Defence used the museum for their headquarters immediately after the earthquakes.

- Winner NZIA Branch Award for Interior Architecture
- Winner NZIA Colour Award
- Finalist Best Museum Project Museums Aotearoa

KAIKOURA EARTHQUAKE EXHIBITION, KAIKOURA MUSEUM

In 120 seconds during the early hours of the 14th November 2016 the world for Kaikoura changed forever. The devastating 7.8 earthquake caused widespread damage both physically and emotionally to the landscape and people of this beautiful tourist township. To coincide with the reopening of the main state highway and tourist route one year, one month and one day after the quake we opened an exhibition at the Kaikoura Museum as a community response to the earthquake.

Suspended within a community exhibition room created for the Kaikoura Museum is a tent reminiscent of those used immediately after the earthquake, its sides back-lit and printed with information panels depicting what physically happens to the human body over the first few minutes when stressed by such an event. Dramatic video footage showing the broken landscape and computer analyses of the shocks illustrate the broader impact, while a film commissioned for the exhibition graphically shows the emotional cost to those interviewed for the film.

Sheltering under this tent is an assemblage of boxes, each initially sent out to various parts of the community and to those involved – including schools, clubs, the defense forces, highway contractors and individuals, including ourselves – and fitted out individually by each. The themes vary from science based, to poetry, heartfelt personal responses or particular events.

A survey pole stands alongside the exhibition as a sentinel, cunningly showing the 9m ground shift within the 4.5 m height room.

WHARE TAONGA
TAKAHANGA MARAE, KAIKOURA
A Kupu Toi Development

During the vast civil engineering works to repair the roads around Kaikoura after the recent significant earthquakes, many taonga were found and collected by the road gangs. The Kaikoura Museum was asked to develop collection policies and develop research protocols to help the local marae develop a modest Whare Taonga to safely house and display the found taonga, and we have been part of this project. This project has started the process of repatriating many taonga from the area that is held in larger museums.

WEIRD & WONDERFUL DISCOVERY CENTRE
AUCKLAND MUSEUM

Commissioned to refurbish and completely re-design the previous highly successful gallery, completed in 1995 the company developed broader themes and objectives in this new design, allowing local natural history to be situated within the context of a wider world.

This unusually long gallery set in the Auckland Museum is on 3 levels and allows for a complex dimension to differing visitor engagement. It is set up into 5 interrelated but distinct natural history themes.

Binding these areas is a ‘spine’ of indigenous Maori themes based around the concept of water - 'wai' - in its many different states.

Winner of New Zealand Institute of Architects National Award 2003
Winner of NZIA Resene Colour Award for Architecture 2003
Finalist NZIA Supreme Award 2003

PERMANENT HUMAN HISTORY GALLERY
AUCKLAND MUSEUM

Having worked on these types of education centres for over 20 years, and several times been asked to re-fresh our previous exhibitions, we looked at this exhibition typology in terms of first principals – what is a museum experience? what is interpretation?

In developing this typology in several museums these projects instigated developments in education departments within the various institutions.

The design of the gallery spaces are intrinsically linked to the unique visitor experience and are highly experimental and architecturally inventive.

Finalist of Wools of NZ Interior Design Awards
Winner of NZIA Award Auckland Branch
Winner of NZIA Resene Colour Award for Architecture
Winner of Lighting Award, Illuminating
Engineering Society of Australia & NZ
Winner of Education Award, Parent & Care Givers Assoc. of NZ
Winner of NZIA Regional Award
Winner of NZIA-Resene National Award for Colour
Winner of NZIA Supreme National Award for Architecture

CANTERBURY MUSEUM

Won by limited competition, this installation is to be a landmark exhibit for a future museum and is based on the historic Okarito Blue Whale skeleton, being almost 33m long – one of the largest skeletons in the world.

MEDICAL SCIENCES LEARNING CENTRE
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

This is an internationally unique interdepartmental resource centre for the Medical School, where students and practitioners of many medical disciplines can resource a wide range of study material – including radiological, anatomical and pathological specimens.

The over-riding theme of this project was the concept of ‘investigative wonderment’ that has occurred throughout the history of medicine and that occurs at the intersection between art and science.

Winner of New Zealand Institute of Architects New Zealand Award
Winner of New Zealand Institute of Architects Colour Award
Winner of New Zealand Institute of Architects National Award
Finalist NZIA Supreme Award

TAKIRI: AN UNFURLING, Toi Maori Arts Exhibition
New Zealand Maritime Museum Auckland

As part of the Tuia 250 Encounters national commemorations, the NZ Maritime Museum in partnership with the University of Auckland asked us to develop this ambitious, and at times controversial exhibition. The exhibition was to simply explore the themes of mapping and navigation to mark the anniversary of the first encounters between Maori and Europeans in Aotearoa 250 years ago. We worked closely with 7 Maori Artists who were commissioned by the museum to develop artwork / mahi toi that responded to various narrative themes and museum held taonga from around New Zealand.
Each separate area had an assemblage of themed components -including Mahi Toi, interpretation text, taonga held in secure cases, floor graphic ‘shadows’ and a physical barrier to the artworks weaving throughout the gallery, referencing the vestigial drawn coastlines often found on early European maps of the Aotearoa.

As an exhibition the design needed to weave between the typologies of art gallery and museum exhibition.

NEW ZEALAND PAVILION
PALAZZO PISANI SANTA MARINA
VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2014

Won by National Competition in association with Dave Mitchell, Mitchell Stout Architects, and on behalf of the New Zealand Institute of Architects we were part of a team that designed, built and installed this international exhibition.

Last, Loneliest, Loveliest proposed a century-long architectural journey that begins with the Auckland War Memorial Museum, a 1920s neo-Classical monument to New Zealand’s fallen soldiers, and ends with the pavilion-like extension to the Auckland Art Gallery (2011) and Shigeru Ban’s ‘Cardboard’ Cathedral (2013) in post-earthquake Christchurch. The exhibition proposed a particular architectural thread in its argument that wound through the pavilion and that showcased the survival and evolution of a Pacific architectural tradition throughout New Zealand Architecture. 

The exhibition was housed within a 800 year old Palazzo,  it’s components being particularly light in contrast – a suspended tent, backlit, showing the major body text, several large feature panels and a specially commissioned Whataarangi (store house of toanga) complete with a small model of the Auckland War Memorial within.

INSTALLATION AT
THE INSTITUTO STATALE D’ARTE
FIRENZE, ITALY

We were asked to design, fabricate and project manage this significant international travelling exhibition focusing on New Zealand residential architecture for the School of Architecture at Unitec.

As designers we also installed the exhibition in Florence under difficult circumstances to a successful outcome. This exhibition travelled to venues in Europe and the USA

AN EVENT HORIZON
MUSEUM OF WELLINGTON, CITY & SEA, WELLINGTON

This is a permanent introductory gallery for the museum focusing on the contemporary social history of Wellington City.

Working closely with a small museum team we developed a simple design strategy to display 101 stories and 101 objects of varying shapes in an unusual visitor friendly and comprehensible way.

The central background theme and design structure was formed around the idea of the unvarying constant arrow of time.

PERMANENT NATURAL HISTORY GALLERY,
CANTERBURY MUSEUM, CHRISTCHURCH, 1998

Exploring the modes of display within a museum, this gallery uses the dialectic quality of storage / display as a central theme.

The myopic space of collection and taxonomic systems is conveyed by stratified and segmented spaces in which the staff and viewers often find themselves 'on display' alongside the specimens. 

Winner of Wools of NZ Interior Design Awards, 1999
Highly Commended Award for DINZ Best Design Awards, 1999

Morrin Museum,
Morrinsville

We were engaged by the Morrinsville Historical Society to design a new building for their new museum. This was part of an overarching Masterplan we worked on for an Arts Precinct for Morrinsville.
The Museum contains an exhibition area housing existing collections, reception, community & research rooms, archive rooms, storage rooms and offices.

We are currently designing the new exhibition.

WESTMERE, AUCKLAND

This small new upper floor addition to a simple state house belies a large philosophical stance imbued within a simple design.

Winner CHH National Award
Winner NZIA Regional Award
Finalist NZIA Supreme National Award for Architecture
Published in Peter Shaw’s ‘A History of New Zealand Architecture’

FOR SIR JAMES WALLACE, EPSOM, AUCKLAND

Various alterations to this listed historic dwelling and landscape surrounds (Heritage Cat 2 HPT, ACC Historic Cat B ) to show case one of New Zealand’s finest art collections. This includes Art Storage basement development, Art Gallery attic, servants quarters and Art Gallery / Dining vestibule.

VISITOR CENTRE EXHIBITION, CHRISTCHURCH BOTANIC GARDENS, OTUATAHI

As part of the Visitor Centre re-development we were asked to develop a small exhibition of under 50 sqm focusing on the history of ‘the Garden City’.
Working with Tuahiwi we looked at how plants were and are used as the basic resource in all things from early Maori to modern times, with a particular emphasis on the Canterbury region.

COMPUTER SCIENCE BUILDING, UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

This simple exhibition was completed for the opening of the new Computer Science Building at Auckland University and is the inaugural exhibition to what will become a series of museum-like exhibits throughout the department.  As a permanent exhibition centred around the history of computing it follows the progressive miniaturization of computing memory.

Following the relocation and refurbishment of the Computer  Science Faculty a second Memory line was installed.

MORE THAN A MUMMY – 150 YEARS OF COLLECTING
EXHIBITION, AUCKLAND MUSEUM

A temporary exhibition celebrating the 150 years in Auckland Museum’s history. Using a graphic time-line on the floor, the exhibition displays various periods and themes in the museum’s history in a series of cabinets which mediate between two distinctively themed areas: 'front of house' / display and 'back of house' / storage.

THE NEW ZEALAND CARDIAC STORY,
THE AUCKLAND MEDICAL MUSEUM TRUST

This inaugural exhibition for the AMMT is housed in 2 shipping containers and is travelling around New Zealand. Brave Hearts explains what we know about the heart’s anatomy and physiology, what can go wrong, what is done to repair a problem and the skill and technology crucial for treatment.

Brave Hearts introduces New Zealand’s medical pioneers who rode the great wave of new knowledge about the heart from the 1940’s as well as the courageous patients who risked their lives to make this possible.

NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM
AUCKLAND

As a refresh design of an existing gallery we looked at the reasons behind immigration journeys, show-casing various people from New Zealand history and their immigration story. The gallery ends with a ‘wheel of fortune’ depicting the fate of 1 of 12 people you choose at the beginning of the exhibition.

PAINTING, SCULPTURE, PHOTOGRAPHY
DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE 1950’S
EXHIBITION, AUCKLAND CITY ART GALLERY

For this landmark exhibition we were the lead exhibition designers, curators & researchers in part, builders & project managers. Won by limited competition (McKay Pearson Architects).

This was the largest exhibition the Art Gallery has undertaken taking over the total 2 floors of the old ACAG.

HERNE BAY, AUCKLAND

This project consists of a number of complex house alterations, including new upper floor development within a historic villa.

Winner NZIA Branch Award for Architecture
Winner NZIA Branch Colour Award for Architecture

CADBURY VISITOR CENTRE AND FACTORY TOUR,
CADBURY INTERNATIONAL, DUNEDIN

Based on the history of chocolate - its discovery and manufacture, and the cultural and emotional associations of confectionery - this project includes a dedicated Visitor Centre as well as a comprehensive Factory Tour, complete with a 9 -storey high ‘chocolate waterfall’.

In designing this visitor centre we had no objects to work with apart from the factory itself and so formed a team of artists from the Dunedin art and music scene to create sculptural displays and sound installations.

This development is a major tourist drawcard for the City of Dunedin.

Winner of a New Zealand Institute of Building Awards

Edmiston Gallery & Orpheus Exhibition
National Maritime Museum, Auckland

We were asked to redesigned the Edmiston Gallery and Orpheus exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, continuing from the exhibition gallery we completed several years ago. We have built in more flexibility to the gallery allowing for a range of exhibition spaces. To achieve this, we have developed a system of pivoting walls shaping up an array of spaces giving dozens of different gallery and space permutations.
This new development includes conservation pictorial storage rooms and technician workrooms, as well as the new exhibition design for the Orpheus Shipwreck exhibition.